Irish start-up HeyStaks gets €1.5m Digicel investment

UCD-based start-up firm HeyStaks has raised €1.5 million in investment from the Denis O'Brien-owned mobile network provider Digicel to help bring its mobile intent analytics platform to market.

The technology was developed by the company's co-founders Dr Peter Briggs and Dr Maurice Coyle during their PhD research at UCD's School of Computer Science and Informatics.

HeyStaks’ platform analyses smartphone behaviour anonymously to understand the intent and interests of users , thereby enabling mobile operators to better serve their customers’ needs and wants.

The company has won a number of awards over the years for its technology, including the inaugural Europe-wide, Unica Entrepreneurship Competition for Students and Young Researcher.

HeyStaks has been working with Digicel since 2013.Previous investments in the company totalling €1.8 million have been made by The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, managed by Investec Ventures, the AIB Seed Capital Fund, managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre (DBIC), and Enterprise Ireland.

HeyStaks was founded in 2008 by Dr Briggs, Dr Coyle and Prof Barry Smyth. It is currently based at NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at UCD, and maintains a subsidiary company in the US to facilitate international business development.

The company, which is a spin-out company from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded Clarity Centre for Sensor Web Technologies said it intends to create 20 jobs over the next year.