James Clifford of VisiLit and Tony Staunton of PropertyGate, the winning start-ups in the NDRC's Swequity Exchange
Two early stage start-ups VisiLit and PropertyGate have won the judges’ prize and the audience prize in the finals of the Swequity Exchange competition at the NDRC today after spending five weeks on the programme along with eight other start-ups.
The idea of the Swequity programme is to bring people with business ideas together and to match them with a team of voluntary experts in the areas of technology, marketing and business creation to help take their ideas to the next level.
In all, 85 business ideas were entered, but 10 teams were chosen to take part in the five-week programme, according to the NDRC’s Inventorium director Mark Kearns.
Team members get a 7pc shareholding in a business if it is successful.
VisiLit, a venue lighting system, was chosen as the winner of the Swequity judge’s award. The judging panel included Eoin Costello from DIT Hothouse, Diane Roberts from Coleman Equity, Lawrence Lee from Enterprise Ireland, and Terence Bowden from DCU Ryan Academy.
VisiLit is a computer-based system that aims to help users create lighting designs in professional venues.
Web-based platform PropertyGate won the audience prize at the Swequity finals. The start-up has devised a set of management and accounting tools for property managers. The tools are built into a web-based platform that combines management and accounting data with ownership, financials, budgets and forecasts.
Kearns said Swequity Exchange is a rewriting of how start-ups are conceived and brought to market.
“VisiLit and PropertyGate out superb examples of the benefit of the programme,” he said.
