AIB Start-up Academy pitch day: What the judges thought

The standard of pitching was high at the AIB Start-up Academy pitch day. All six judges agreed the list of 20 companies was difficult to narrow down, but only the top 10 are going through to the next phase.

Here are some things that stood out to the judges:

Jill Downey, deputy managing director at Starcom

“The most impressive thing was just how passionate and inspired the people are, and how driven they are behind their brand,” Downey said.

She thought the Herdwatch pitch was especially strong.

“It’s a product specifically for cattle farmers. I don’t know anything about cattle farming, but I can see it was solving a genuine problem for farmers.

“And farmers are getting younger and more tech savvy, so the actual need and usage of the product could only go up.”

David Shackleton, co-founder of CharityCASH and Ding*

For Shackleton, companies that had figures to present really stood out. “Some of the companies have really well thought-out plans about how to break even,” he said.

The passion and stories were good, but even more important was that they were real businesses with real revenue.

“The thing that really got me was how many of these companies are in revenue…These are all mature companies that must have worked incredibly hard over the last months, in some cases years, to get to where they are. And they’re all at that really exciting point where they’re all just about to hit the higher growth and expansion stage.”

Dr Johnny Ryan, executive director at the UCD Innovation Academy

Ryan said all 20 pitches had interesting value propositions that looked attractive to the judging panel.

“We were challenged to separate the 10 final start-ups from the original twenty. I think the final start-ups are an incredible set of businesses,” he said.

“Their breadth and variety shows how widely the start-up spirit is spread across Ireland. Normally, I think tech start-ups take an undue proportion of the coverage and attention. These companies, however, are a strong spread.

“They prove that finding a problem that needs to be solved is at the core of business development, and that an entrepreneur from any background can do this.”

Ken Burke, head of business banking at AIB

Burke has judged many start-up competitions, so he has seen a lot of pitching.

What stood out during the pitching session was that the companies had well thought out strategies.

“They knew how they were going to scale their businesses, how they were going to use social media, how they were going to explore and penetrate other markets,” he said.

The products were well-defined, well thought through and well produced, “right down to the quality of packaging, promotion and associated material”.

“I suppose if there was a theme running through the day, (there were) quite a lot of food type companies. And I suppose that sits well with Ireland as a really strong food-producing nation.”

Burke said another theme was helping people manage busy lifestyles using technology.

“It was a tough decision, but I think we have selected 10 businesses that are really going to benefit from the academy, and I look forward to seeing them in years to come,” he said.

Pamela Newenham, business journalist at The Irish Times

Newenham was impressed by the number of food start-ups which pitched.

“It is quite difficult at the moment to eat healthy. It can be quite expensive as well if you go to a health food store or try to find a healthy product in a regular store. It’s hard. A lot of their ideas were quick, easy food on the go that was healthy but not too expensive, either,” she said.

“We were lucky in that they brought a lot of samples to us, so I got to try a lot of the food products. Some of them I’d actually already heard of and tasted their products before.”

Elaine O’Hora, founder and director of Munchies

An entrepreneur herself, O’Hora is used to doing the pitching, not the judging.

“This is the first time I’ve ever judged. It was great to be on the other side of the table,” she said.

Because O’Hora is in the food business, she was interested in the changing food trends on display.

“They’re going towards more healthy food: gluten-free, no sugar. It was great to see that.”

She thinks the Start-up Academy will give the companies selected the confidence to keep going.

“I remember years ago getting a grant from the IDA. And the fact that we got the grant meant they believed in us. And it’s the same here. It’s an endorsement of what they’re doing,” she said.