Boosting Irish entrepreneurs

INTERTRADEIRELAND:INTERTRADEIRELAND'S SEEDCORN competition has grown to become the island's biggest business awards scheme for early-stage and high-growth companies in any sector, from any part of the island.

Now in its ninth year, the competition, aimed at companies who have a new equity funding requirement, had a record prize fund of €280,000 in 2011. Previous finalists from the competition have gone on to secure more than €140 million worth of equity since taking part.

The competition aims to recreate the investment process with entrants submitting business plans for assessment by a panel of independent entrepreneurs, investors and experts. Companies are subjected to a rigorous interview by the judges in competing for the best emerging and best high-growth company titles on a regional basis in Connacht and Leinster, Munster, Dublin and Northern Ireland, with the winners in each region securing an initial €20,000 share of the prize fund for their company.

These regional winners then go on to the final where they make their pitch again to a separate panel of judges. The panel selects an all-island winner in each category, with the overall winners of the best emerging company category receiving a prize of €50,000 and the best high-growth company receiving €100,000 payable by instalments based on achieving the key performance indicators in the business plan to finance the early stages of the venture.

The latest winners were announced in November with ALR Innovations taking the best high-growth company prize and Zinc Software winning the best emerging company award.

The competition is about much more than the prize fund, however. It brings companies through a series of workshops, seminars and presentations designed to replicate the rigours of the real-life investment process with business plans being subjected to robust critiques along the way.

“Seedcorn has become one of the most highly regarded business competitions on the island,” says InterTradeIreland operations manager Gráinne Lennon. “It has become an important route for companies looking to raise funds and become investor-ready. There are a lot of companies looking for funding but only the best will succeed. If a company is good enough, it will get the funding. Seedcorn aims to help companies become good enough to get the funding. Winners of the competition also get valuable publicity as well as the inputs of the expert judging panel. In fact, several past winners have benefited through judges becoming non-executive directors and investors.”

ALR Innovations, this year’s overall winner, is a University of Limerick spin-out company which is based between the University of Limerick and the Hartnett Acceleration Centre in Limerick. The company supplies a specialised recycling technology for LCD displays which removes the hazardous materials from waste displays in a fast, efficient and automated process.

The technology is currently unchallenged in the market and provides a unique solution for the problem of LCD recycling for European and worldwide markets. The technology has emerged from Environmental Protection Agency-funded research under the Science, Technology, Research and Innovation for the Environment (Strive) programme.

“LCD displays contain mercury and EU directives say this has to be recovered,” explains ALR Innovations chief executive Dr Lisa O’Donoghue.

“But there was no automated process to do this. There are up to 150 screws on the inside of a TV screen and it can take up to 20 minutes just to remove these. It is a very slow process. Only three LCD screens can be recycled per hour per worker doing it manually and this is uneconomic. Our automated system can process 80 LCDs per hour and is far safer than the manual method.”

And the company is poised for rapid growth. “Our technology is aimed at Europe and LCD sales in that market alone are projected to reach 85 million units in 2015 and all of those will have to be recycled at some stage. We hope to announce our first sale in the near future,” O’Donoghue points out.

“We were delighted to win such a prestigious competition as Seedcorn,” she says. “We have found our involvement in Seedcorn and with InterTradeIreland to be a hugely rewarding and beneficial experience. It has improved and refined our business proposition through the vigorous judging process. The publicity has also given us a huge boost in terms of the prestige associated with winning a major competition of this kind.

“We have also made contacts on both sides of the Border during this competition that would have been difficult to make otherwise. It certainly proves that the idea behind InterTradeIreland is alive and well. We look forward to maintaining a close relationship with InterTradeIreland as we continue to grow and expand our business on a global market which the Seedcorn competition is helping us to achieve.”

Zinc Software is a technology company engaged in developing preventative healthcare technology. It has developed the world’s first smartphone-linked heart health sensor. Consisting of a revolutionary ear-worn Bluetooth heart sensor and a patent-protected signal analysis engine, the platform has potential applications ranging from the medical sector to fitness and wellness.

“We are delighted to have won the best emerging category in the Seedcorn Competition,” says Zinc Software chief executive Darran Hughes. “It is a great validation of our product and our company. It will help hugely in our quest to raise funds over the coming months. Also the prize fund is very timely, allowing us to expand our team, and helps us get closer to product launch.”

Zinc’s first products are games that target stress, a huge factor in many people’s lives. The user is instructed in yoga breathing based on live feedback from their heart. As their stress levels reduce, the games progress, giving a visual indication of how well they are doing that is both fun and engaging.

The company’s aim is to make it fun for people to engage with their own health and wellbeing. “Preventative healthcare will play a major role in turning around our health system in the coming years,” says Hughes. “But getting people to engage with their health is difficult to do. We are making health and fitness a game to make it fun for people to do.”

One example of this “gamification” of health applications is Zen Life, a programme that helps people control stress through meditation. “A virtual bonsai tree is displayed on the screen of the smartphone. If you do the breathing exercises correctly, water pours on the tree making it grow.”

At present Zinc’s key target markets are in the US and California in particular, but it also has applications in development for conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which will be of great interest to the Irish health authorities.

Hughes believes his company’s participation in the Seedcorn competition has already delivered significant benefits. “It was a great opportunity to get feedback from some of the country’s top venture capitalists,” he says. “It helped us tighten up our message, our pitch and our business model. The PR has been great as well; winning the award is making the business community aware of us and has helped put some wind in our sails. I would certainly recommend entering the competition to other early stage companies.”

Lennon points out that Seedcorn is more than just a competition. “Companies can join the Seedcorn network by following us on twitter or joining our group on LinkedIn and can get hints and tips from our experts and other entrepreneurs on how to improve their business plan and what investors are looking for. They can also make contact with other start-ups, hear from previous winners and share experiences of raising equity finance as well as sign up to attend one of our free Seedcorn workshops which we will be running throughout the island during the year.”

For further information log on to intertradeireland.com/seedcorn