Limerick Startup Wins €100,000

/ 26th November 2015 /

Limerick startup Ocean Survivor has been selected as overall winner of the annual InterTradeIreland Seedcorn competition, winning a cash prize of €100,000 at the grand final held at Clontarf Castle. The other main winner on the night was Dublin company, SiriusXT who won the Best Early Stage Company category award and a cash prize of €50,000.

The Seedcorn competition is the island’s biggest business competition for new start and early stage companies and is aimed at companies with a new funding requirement. It has an overall cash prize fund of €280,000, and does not involve taking any equity stake.

Ocean Survivor, which is based at the University of Limerick, manufactures a range of safety equipment aimed primarily at the offshore oil industry. The company is currently developing a simple to use technology that mitigates the effects of hypothermia, while promoting comfort and mental well-being in a survival situation.

Ocean Survivor aims to revolutionise immersion suit and lifejacket technology. The company's products, still in development, should mitigate the effects of hypothermia while also promoting comfort and mental wellbeing in ocean survival situations.

The company's website explains that in a cold environment 20-30 minutes of ocean immersion can bring the core body temperature below 35 degrees Celsius. "Ocean Survivor's technology reduces this core heat loss and transfers heat to vital organs," the company claims.

Kieran Normoyle (pictured), founder of Ocean Survivor, said: “Aside from the prize money, the greatest reward for us has been the constructive feedback we have received about our business plan. By committing ourselves to the Seedcorn competition we had to consider all the aspects of our business and bring them together in one cohesive document. In doing so, we learned so much.

“Winning the competition is a bonus and is incredible and will allow us to invest in securing the necessary trials, standards and personnel required to bring our product to market as soon as possible.” Ocean Survivor was incorporated in 2014 and has received €50,000 funding the taxpayer through from Enterprise Ireland.

UCD spinout SiriusXT has spent eight years developing the technology for its soft x-ray microscope called SXT that enables researchers to produce images in their own labs. CEO Tony McEnroe commented: “The investors on the judging panel acknowledge that they ‘got’ the value proposition when this was presented and we have learned that it is not just the best technology that makes the best business proposition, but the best complete solution for the target customer’s problem.”

InterTradeIreland says it has supported 2,151 enterprising companies through the Seedcorn process. The organisation claims that €197 million in new equity has been raised by the companies that have reached the regional finals stage of the Seedcorn competition over the past 12 years.