PlanDomino secures €30,000 in follow-on investment from NDRC

30 Nov 2018

From left: Ben Hurley, CEO, NDRC; Greg Heaslip, CEO and founder, PlanDomino; and Maurice O’Gorman, chairman, Galway City Innovation District. Image: Andrew Downes/XPOSURE

It’s the PlanDomino effect!

Productivity tool for labs PlanDomino has won €30,000 in follow-on investment from the NDRC at PorterShed’s Investor Showcase in Galway.

Competing with five other digital start-ups, PlanDomino – founded by Greg Heaslip – was chosen as the stand-out business to come through the latest accelerator programme at PorterShed, which is supported by Enterprise Ireland.

‘The start-ups that have completed the PorterShed programme have demonstrated their ability to grow and scale’
– JOE HEALY

“PlanDomino showed a real clarity of purpose, with its market opportunity, founding team and traction to date all encouraging the judges,” said Ben Hurley, CEO of the NDRC.

“We’re already looking forward to seeing what PlanDomino can achieve with the support of NDRC, and now that NDRC at PorterShed’s third investment programme is open for applications, we’re excited to see what the ecosystem can produce.”

A new era of accuracy and efficiency

PlanDomino is a productivity tool designed for the laboratory market. It boosts productivity by up to 50pc by automating scheduling, workflow and resource management. It aligns the laboratory, for the first time, with manufacturing and supply chain operations.

The judges – Mary Rogers of Enterprise Ireland, Niamh Sterling from the Halo Business Angel Network, Finn Murphy from Frontline Ventures, Conor Mills of ACT Ventures and Hurley representing NDRC – were impressed by the opportunity for productising the deep domain insights in PlanDomino, noting the significant market comprising customers with budgets to spend in this space.

PlanDomino is the second winner to be chosen in PorterShed, after car appraisal software business Appraisee won 12 months ago.

NDRC has announced that the third NDRC at PorterShed programme will take place in 2019, with the call now open for entrepreneurs of digital start-ups to apply for funding.

“The start-ups that have completed the PorterShed programme have demonstrated their ability to grow and scale, and I look forward to working with PlanDomino in particular, to encourage them on their growth trajectory,” said Joe Healy, divisional manager in charge of the high-potential start-up unit at Enterprise Ireland.

The start-up tribes to watch from Galway

The six businesses that took part in the second iteration of NDRC at PorterShed were:

Metafact

Metafact supports newsrooms and media agencies by authenticating stories and removing ‘fake news’ misinformation. By tracking and tracing the origins and supporting references of stories on the web, the data and mapping tools aid good-quality journalism and help eliminate the negative effect of artificial stories.

PlanDomino

PlanDomino is a digital Lean laboratory platform that automates grouping of samples, scheduling, workflows and resource management. The aim is for this platform to make labs more efficient by ramping up productivity and capacity.

The Beauty Buddy

The Beauty Buddy is a software solution that allows beauty and cosmetic brands to easily connect with their end users, enabling customers to make an informed purchasing decision. Customers scan items through The Beauty Buddy app, providing them with information on product benefits, reviews, feedback and more.

LunaConnect

LunaConnect transforms SME lending by creating higher returns from lending to SMEs. Lending to SMEs has traditionally been high-risk and high-cost. For example, a loan of €100,000 can cost as much as €6,000 to set up and maintain, leaving thin margins for lenders, and small value loans unprofitable.

CorribPoint

CorribPoint has developed Akula, a fully automated cloud-based solution enabling credit unions and smaller financial institutions to meet anti-money laundering obligations under legislation efficiently, consistently and cost-effectively.

Tribal

Tribal helps companies measure performance and implement changes to avoid issues like underperformance and employee churn. High-performance teams need to be supported to balance their skills and challenge in the workplace.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com