Global Ambition Accelerator Programme- Cohort 1
The Global Ambition Programme was designed to support early-stage digital and technology companies seeking to scale internationally. The programme commenced on 25th March 2021 and is due to conclude on 27th May 2021 with the Cohort of Participants pitching to a panel of investors. After carefully curating the applications for the programme, we selected 11 companies to participate. We are excited to unveil this diverse portfolio of companies.
Hailing from a family that has been closely associated with the Irish Horse Race Industry, Rob Beresford in his early days connected with several people inside the industry to understand the market needs. Rob was quick to observe the communication gap between various actors in the ecosystem and turned to co-founding Equi360, an Equine management platform with James Ryan, a racehorse trainer. The horse racing industry faces several challenges especially around Equine physiology, behaviour and basic needs such as housing, nutrition etc. The platform is uniquely designed to serve the needs of the Trainers, Stud Managers, Owners, Syndicate Managers and Race Club Managers and to enable a seamless flow of information. From maintaining individual horse profiles and breeding history to admin-related tasks and race day updates, the platform provides all the essential information at your fingertips. Over the last 12 months, Equi360 has developed a global network of active users spread across 15 countries. Equi360 is looking to scale its operation Globally while maintaining its headquarters in Ireland.
Companies are rapidly shifting priorities to become more sustainable and to engage with green initiatives. Founded by Jack Dwyer and Luke Fagan, Vyra is a Sustainability Platform that lets organisations track their environmental footprint and making sustainability accessible for employees and suppliers. They offer a ‘Zero to Sustainable’ employee-driven experience that concludes with measurable outcomes such as CO2 emissions reductions and increased knowledge around sustainability. Unlike, other initiatives that require teams to attend workshops on ‘greening their behaviour’, Vyra engages participants in impact-making behavioural challenges such as ‘eating a veggie meal’ or ‘cycle to work’. When you participate in Vyra, you also become a part of VyraForest, an ecology initiative set in Wicklow to restore natural native woodland. Currently, Vyra is a part of a Climate Hub in Seattle and focused on automating different aspects of their platform to deliver maximum value to their customers.
Imagine, receiving a curated box of freshly roasted coffee every month tuned to your specific tastes. Brothers, Darragh and Keith Scanlon, have created Coffiehub, a platform that connects roasters, cafes and other actors in the coffee business to bring an immersive experience to their customers. Each coffee featured on their online portfolio is carefully curated and tasted by the founders. The algorithm integrated on Coffiehub’s platform hits more than 2,500 data points such as flavour, acidity, the body of the coffee and much more to create a unique customer profile. Thus, letting Coffiehub customize its customer preference. When a new type of coffee matches with the customer profile, the customer gets an instant notification. So far, Coffiehub has featured 150 different types of coffee. They are working on a scalable model to expand their operations globally with a focus on Western Europe as they continue to curate more roasters and cafes to feature on their platform.
HUB360 was originally founded with a vision to provide organisations with complete visibility of their sales orders from order capture right through to the POD signature. The HUB360 management system has been designed and built from the ground up on 40+ years, experience within the IT & software development space. Having a strong background in IT, Logistics and Supply Chain Management, founders John O’Neill and Denise O’Kelly were familiar with the existing gaps in the services provided by Enterprise Level Systems and had the right combination of expertise to create a cost-efficient solution to fill these needs for both Enterprise Level Organisations & SMEs.
Today, the platform enables total control over all distribution activities to ensure the entire process is efficiently managed while automating many tasks including customs declarations, invoicing, load planning, route mapping, haulier management. This has resulted in significant costs reductions and has led to a clear impact on their customer companies carbon footprint.
We have all been in an uncomfortable situation, constantly looking over our shoulder to assure ourselves that we are safe. SafeAmigos is a Personal Safety Platform that includes apps for Android and iPhone to help you feel safer and reassure your close network of family, friends, employer or co-workers that they will be alerted if you need help. Finbarr McCarthy, founder of Safe Amigos explains that the solution aims to tackle gender violence, harassment and helps individuals take safety discreetly into their own hands. The app works for businesses to satisfy their legal obligations to help ensure employee safety, and consumers to satisfy the needs of parents and their teenage children, adult children, or elderly relatives. As well as an SOS feature, it includes an option that allows a user to set a ‘timer’ to trigger an alert if it’s not cancelled before it expires. Alerts are sent to ‘Responders’, a set of trusted people who will contact the user and arrange assistance if required. With several other user- friendly safety features, SafeAmigos was developed as a global solution. Their expansion plans include focusing on the UK, Canada, US, Australia and New Zealand to a user base including college students, business users, consumers and local communities.
A certified Child Sleep Consultant, Erica Hargaden, Co-Founder of Babogue, recalls her experience as a sleep-deprived mother and the lack of services available to help new moms with challenges around their child’s sleep. Babogue offers a suite of educational sleep programmes, grouped into age ranges that naturally go together. The sleep series educates new parents to understand their child’s sleep and serves as a toolkit to lay a foundation around it. Babogue also offers support via social media that allows for more engaging conversations with parents and their sleep journey. The company launched their MVP just over a year ago and has built an extensive user base spanning over 30 countries with more than 2,500 families. Currently, they are developing sleep series to include older children, teenagers and customizing content for twins and multiples. Babogue is a B2C sleep consultancy platform, scoping further on the technical aspects of their platform to provide seamless support to parents globally.
A record-keeper for all things rent, Pyglet is a platform to manage the relationship between Landlords and Tenants. Aaron Shortt, Founder of Pyglet explains that some of the most common problems landlords face with tenants are related to rent arrears, repairs and maintenance. Pyglet is a one-stop shop for rental property management to make renting more transparent. It offers different services to tenants, property management companies and landlords and maintains a master record. All the documentation such as security deposit invoice, any damages on the property, receipts of repairs and servicing can be logged on this platform. Pyglet keeps its users aware of ‘what’s happening in the area’. For example, tenants get updated on the new properties available to rent within the area. Similarly, it lets the landlord find the best tenants and avail house-cleaning services before the new tenant moves in just within a few minutes. The team will be signing on their first set of users during the summers, including tenants, landlords and anyone that needs a solution to manage properties. They plan to expand their operations across Northern Europe and gradually across different countries in Europe.
Niall Maher, Co-founder of Digital-Motorsports.com grew up around cars and loving motorsports. Digital Motorsports Virtual Race Academy is located in the heart of Mondello Park International Racing Circuit. They offer number of products and services such as individuals exploring virtual driving experiences, corporate team events, Early Drive Programme for teenagers together with BMW and Mondello Park. They also offer software solutions for the simulator industry and simulator components. The users can opt for different simulator solutions depending on their experience level and need. Digital Motorsports hosted the first Irish Digital Motorsport Championship, a few months ago. Niall envisions his platform reducing the barrier to entry in this sport and wants to continue building a community that recognizes and supports digital motorsports as a professional sport. Digital Motorsports.com wants to make virtual racing easily accessible and easy to understand for a wider community.
Equine Medirecord has developed a software platform to record Equine medical records in a digital format straight from their trainers and vets. The app records information regarding the medication required for the horse under care, medical history and complies with animal welfare and anti-doping regulations. The platform aims to improve transparency and equine welfare in the industry and a digital health tracking system for horses is the first step in this direction. Currently, Equine Medirecord has clients based in Europe, North America and the Middle-East including Breeders Cup World Championships, Thoroughbred Owners of California and Arabian Racing Organisation. Founder Pierce Dargan plans to expand their operations further in these countries and in Asia.
Access Earth founders, Matthew McCann and Donal McClean recall working on this idea during their university days for Microsoft Imagine Cup. They went on to win the Cup finals in Seattle and transitioned into founding the company Access Earth. Access Earth is an AI-enabled platform that allows its users to find and rate places by accessibility needs. They have partnered with the European Space Agency to analyse aerial imagery and provide accessible parking information. They are working on different ways such as creating digital twins of buildings and stadiums to overlay access information for stadium-goers in an interactive fashion. Anyone can provide a venue accessibility rating by either answering Access Earth’s criteria or by simply leaving a note, the app is free to use. Access Earth’s database of venues across the globe is split into different categories, covering places to eat and drink, places to sleep, shopping and things to do and with the latest add-on ‘social distancing’. Users can search for accessibility information across the world. When they select a venue type, they can choose to specify the accessibility criteria, such as bathrooms, step-free access and so on.
They are currently working with different business organizations to expand on their accessibility database and make it venue specific for ease of access.
They are currently working with different business organizations to expand on their accessibility database and make it venue specific for ease of access.
Founded by Marie Therese McCormack and John Cleary, AerNua has designed an engineering solution to make indoor spaces safe through purified air. The global pandemic has made working in closed and poor ventilated spaces a challenge for business owners. EAM Group’s Aer Nua is an effective solution to prevent the spread of coronavirus and other such pathogens in enclosed spaces by continuously monitoring and sterilising the air within the space. Available in a printer/desktop size model Aer Nua can be placed anywhere in the room. The company has completed their product trials with a secondary school in Kilkenny and a care home facility in Wicklow. They are currently focusing on essential service environments such as educational facilities, hotels, old-age care facilities and corporate offices to reduce the burden of social distancing. EAM Group current partners include Matlen and Aubren Limited.
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