Mobile messaging, online recruitment and beauty parlour booking engines feature on the shortlist for the ESB Spark of Genius Award 2015, the winner of which will be announced during the Web Summit in Dublin.
The ESB competition focuses on high-potential technology startups, offering a prize fund of €25,000. Fifteen startups made this year’s shortlist from over 170 entries. They will pitch to a judging panel on September 16 in the Web Summit’s HQ in Dublin.
The top three startups on the night will then proceed to the final stage at Web Summit in November 2015, where they will pitch to the judges for the overall title. Past winners of the ESB Spark of Genius Award include Love & Robots, Viddyad, Datahug and SmartThings, which was recently acquired by Samsung for a reported $200m.
Speaking about the competition, Paddy Cosgrave (pictured), Web Summit CEO, said that the standard of applications is high.
“This is a great opportunity and the amount of startups that have applied shows just how thriving the Irish tech scene is,” he maintained.
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Mary Collins, the ESB judge and a partner in Greencoat Capital, said: “It was a challenge to reduce the shortlist to just 15, as the entries were of a very high standard, which highlights the great innovation and entrepreneurship happening in Ireland at the moment.”
The shortlisted startups are:
Medxnote – A secure mobile messaging app and notification platform for the healthcare sector;
Sportego – A marketing and gaming development company aimed at professional sports clubs and organisations;
Bizimply – A people and shift management solution;
Pucker – A marketplace that allows customers to connect with vetted, mobile beauty professionals and book appointments;
Wia – A cloud platform that enables users to build software to launch their Internet of Things (IoT) solutions;
Jobbio – An online and mobile jobs marketplace;
Youth Nation – A youth-specific, global communications company.
Videobot – Enables enterprises, brands, and publishers to deploy tailor-made video applications across devices;
Sedicii – Eliminates the need to transmit passwords and other identity data over the web;
Martini Studios – Uses ‘spin’ product photography to provide online buyers with a more immersive shopping experience;
SoapBox Labs – Developing a new speech-technology-based adaptive learning platform;
Birdleaf – Turns customers email addresses into actionable insights;
Ayda – A fertility tracker worn during sleep;
Social Honey – Helps publishers analyse audience and content performance;
EnergyElephant – Provides unique insights into users’ electricity and gas use.
