Here are thirteen of the most promising new businesses to emerge from Ireland over the past few years.
The winners at the 2018 National Startup Awards, powered by Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, represent some of the best new businesses in Ireland across thirteen categories including tech, retail, product and tourism.
Early stage startup Nova Leah won the Grand Prix Startup of the Year award and a €10,000 cash prize.
Croí Valve, which won in the early stage startup category, received €5,000 to support the development of its business.
The 13 gold award winners are:
- Croí Valve, the early stage startup winner, is developing a safe, effective and easy to deliver device to significantly reduce tricuspid regurgitation in high-risk patients
- Nova Leah, the emerge-tech startup and Grand Prix winner is the first expert cybersecurity system for medical devices.
- ID Pal, the fintech startup winner, provides a simple identity verification solution that allows businesses to onboard customers quickly and easily.
- Hexafly, the agritech startup winner is developing new material sources for the aqua feed, chitin and plant nutrition industries
- Coindrum, the travel and tourism startup winner, provides airport self-service units that turn leftover coins into duty-free vouchers worth 110% of deposits.
- Strong Roots, the food and drink startup winner, is a food company ‘hell-bent on revolutionising frozen vegetables through innovation’.
- myAccessHub, the social and sustainable startup winner, helps businesses become more accessible.
- Nasal Medical, the product and manufacturing startup winner; designs nasal filters.
- SalesOptimize, the eCommerce startup winner; provides eCommerce data science that can reveal an entire market.
- Ronocco Style, the retail and fashion startup winner, is a fashion business run by Pippa O’Connor and Brian Ormond.
- iKydz, the tech startup winner, provides a variety of tools to help parents keep their children safe on the Internet.
- Hooke Bio, the medtech startup winner, is a new company operating in the early stages of drug discovery.
- AudiosourceRE, is the research spinout / third level and IIBN (Irish International Business Network) startup hero winner.
“As the largest lender to the Irish economy we are committed to supporting new and emerging entrepreneurs as they grow and develop their business and we have been incredibly impressed by the high standard of entries that have come through this competition,” says Gavin Kelly, CEO Retail Ireland, Bank of Ireland.
For more information on the awards visit www.startupawards.ie.
Pictured above are Gavin Kelly, CEO Retail Ireland, Bank of Ireland with Anita Finnegan, founder of Nova Leah who won the Grand Prix Award which included a €10,000 cash prize and was named overall winner in the emerge-tech startup category along with Stephen Dillon, founder of Startups.ie and Joe Healy, HPSU divisional manager, Enterprise Ireland.
