Google’s ‘Adopt A Startup’ Picks Announced

/ 20th April 2016 /

Google welcomed 30 high-potential Irish startups to its EMEA HQ this week to participate in the latest cycle of its Adopt a Startup programme, which will provide each company with 12 weeks of mentoring by a dedicated Google support team.

The team will work with the startups to develop and improve their overall business strategy and the programme will culminate with a Dragons’ Den style competition final on July 12.

Previous participating companies, including Bizimply, FoodCloud, Jobbio and Beats Medical, have gone on to big things. Bizimply, for instance, recently raised €2m in investment funds and announced plans to open an office in the UK.

Paddy Flynn, head of Google Ireland’s startup programme, said that the principal aim of Adopt a Startup is to assist participants to develop their business strategies, as well as providing hands-on support and advice for future growth.

Successful Initiative

He added: “Now in its fourth year, this is a highly effective and successful initiative for Google in Ireland. Over two cycles of the programme in 2015, we had 16 finalists and a total of 52 startup participants.”

“The calibre of participants in the spring programme is very strong. Close to half of the companies are based outside of Dublin and a large number are headed by female founders and co-founders.

“This includes Ourobotics, a 3D bio-printing company, which won the 2015 SVOD Europe competition, and BonzaQuote, the online DIY marketplace and community who recently participated in the prestigious Silicon Valley Blackbox Connect accelerator programme.”

Each of the startups will receive 12 weeks hands-on mentoring, access to an exclusive lecture series at Google offices and Google Apps for Work licenses, free for a year.

Successful startups will also get the opportunity to pitch their developed business plans and results of the programme to members of Google Ireland’s leadership team, as well as prominent figures from the Irish startup community at a grand final in Google’s European Headquarters in July.

Last year's panel included external judges Patrick Walsh, MD of DogPatch Labs, and Kevin Sherry, global business development with Enterprise Ireland. The winner will receive €10,000 Google AdWords credit and will also become eligible for the Google Cloud Platform for Startups programme, which comes with $20,000 Google Cloud credits.

The 30 startups selected are:

Altocloud
Arklu
Ayda
BEUTiFi.com
BonzaQuote
Carefolk
Effy
GirlCrew
GlowDx
Grekho
Harpoon
iMobMedia
Inforama
Juggle
Kinesis Health Technologies
Little Vista
The Cool Bean Company
Newslinn
NuWave
ONCOassist
Ourobotics
OxyMem
Pingme
Rathwood
Seen on Set
Skytango
Sothic Bioscience
TruckScience
Warbble
Writing for TiNY