Former Connacht Rugby player Conor O’Loughlin is Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur for 2018, after winning the competition over the weekend. The 35-year-old is the founder of Glofox, which sells business management software to fitness studios and gyms.
As well as claiming the overall prize, O’Loughlin won the national category of Best Established Business. He secured a total investment of €40,000 from the wins. Funding for the IBYE competition, which is run by the Local Enterprise Office network, is provided by Enterprise Ireland.
O’Loughlin represented LEO Dun Laoghaire Rathdown in the IBYE competition. After a hip injury forced him to retire from rugby in 2011, O’Loughlin set up Photobooth Occasions with fellow Connacht rugby star Ronan Loughney. The business rented photo booths with novelty props to corporate events and parties.
The two subsequently sold Photobooth Occasions and O’Loughlin started Glofox. He formed the company with friend Finn Hegarty and Anthony Kelly, a former solicitor that he met through a mutual friend. It launched in 2014.
In 2017, Glofox announced that it had raised €2m in a VC investment round. The funds were secured from Tribal VC, a Dublin-based venture capital firm, as well as Partech Ventures and Notion Capital, a SaaS-focused VC fund.
In Association with
Glofox’s software allows both gym members and gym owners to access usage, payment and service information. It now has more than 1,000 customers spread across 23 countries. O’Loughlin is in the process of setting up a base out of New York in 2018, with the US as the company’s main focus.
“This is fantastic and such a huge shock considering the calibre of business and entrepreneurs,” said O’Loughlin, commenting on his IBYE success. "I can’t quite believe it, looking around at the competition.”
The other IBYE National Final category winners were Brendan Boland of Loci Orthopaedics, representing LEO Galway, who won Best Business Idea. Alan Hickey of WeBringg, representing LEO Fingal, won Best Start-Up Business.
The runners-up in each of the categories were Joe Perrott of Remote Signals and Kevin Kelleher of Ostoform in the Best Business Idea category, with both securing a €4,000 investment fund. In the Best Start-Up Business, the runners up were Ciaran Gorman of BevCraft and Jessica Kavanagh of Olann, who both secured a €5,000 investment fund.
In the Best Established Business, the runners up were Paddy Finn of Electricity Exchange and Robbie Skuse of Kollect.ie. They will both receive an investment fund of €5,000.
The winner of the Google Award for Best Online Promotion of a Business Award went to Matthew McCann and Access Earth. He received €1,000 worth of Google Ad Words Credit and 13 weeks in a Google mentoring programme.
The judging panel for this year’s IBYE competition was chaired by Paddy Flynn, director of trust and safety, Google.
Photo: Conor O’Loughlin (centre) with Brendan Boland (left) and Alan Hickey (Pic: Mark Stedman)
