Irish Times Digital Challenge winner GetBulb heads to London to seek VC investment

25 Mar 2013

Oliver Mooney, founder and CEO of GetBulb, with Kevin O'Sullivan, editor of The Irish Times

Startupbootcamp alumnus and winner of The Irish Times Digital Challenge GetBulb will be in London today to pitch to venture capitalists and seek investment in the latest version of its product, which makes data visualisation a doddle.

The London Investor Demo Day is a regular event scheduled by global accelerator programme Startupbootcamp. Here, start-ups from across the programme will make a rapid-fire pitch to venture capitalist firms, including Index Ventures, Balderton, Frontline Ventures, Wellington Partners and DFJ Esprit.

GetBulb will be there pitching its easy-to-use data visualisation tool for businesses to work with data and present information in an aesthetically pleasing and informative way. With so much data being created and analysed online, infographics have become commonplace, and GetBulb provides an easy way to join the fold.

The interface is based on simplicity for the user and, with a library of pre-designed templates and integration with Microsoft Excel built in, it turns data visualisation into a largely cut-and-paste job. Their idea is, if this guy can manage it, anyone can:

 

Today, the GetBulb team members are hoping for the same success they enjoyed in the inaugural Irish Times Digital Challenge in October last year, which saw them take away the grand prize of €50,000 seed funding from DFJ Esprit, as well as some crucial publicity.

“First of all there’s been the investment out of it, but also there’s the feedback you get from people,” said GetBulb founder and CEO Oliver Mooney of the competition. “[The Irish Times] did a coverage piece on GetBulb as part of the Digital Challenge and that pulled in a lot more customers than a targeted online advertisement did.”

Many enquiries from potential customers followed the Digital Challenge win and, as early adopters have given positive feedback so far, the aim is now for the GetBulb team to grow and push for more users. “We need to be hiring people, getting a big content marketing push, polishing the app and getting it out there,” said Mooney, who explained that the next three to six months will involve a private beta programme targeting designers and analysts to generate awareness and more feedback for further development.

Elaine Burke is the host of For Tech’s Sake, a co-production from Silicon Republic and The HeadStuff Podcast Network. She was previously the editor of Silicon Republic.

editorial@siliconrepublic.com