Seedcorn award attracts tough competition

DUBLIN: Dublin-based company Movidia, which designs multimedia processors for mobile phones, emerged as the biggest winner at the fifth All-Island Seedcorn Business Competition finals last month, scooping a prize of €100,000.

The competition is organised by InterTrade Ireland and aims to stimulate start-up activity and accelerate development by providing businesses with the experience of writing a business plan and presenting it to the venture capital community. The total prize fund for the 2007 competition was a record €280,000.

Movidia beat off stiff competition from fellow finalists Sentry Wireless, AspiraCon and Embricon to win the Best International Emerging Company category, which carried the most lucrative prize fund of the competition.

Movidia was founded in October 2005 by Sean Mitchell, David Moloney and Martin Mellody. Its first chip product is now being manufactured and will be introduced to the market next year. The company employs 25 people between its Dublin headquarters and its design centre in Romania, where many of its software engineers are based.

"The quality of business plans and the breadth of the ideas just keeps improving," says Grainne Lennon, Seedcorn project manager.

The Best Emerging Company category was won by OpenPlain, earning the Dublin-based company a prize of €50,000. The other finalists in this category were Chipright and Food-NDP Teoranta.

A prize of €10,000 for the best venture stemming from university spinouts and platform programmes was awarded to educational software company Fluirse.

Chairman of InterTrade Ireland, Martin Naughton noted that the competition attracted an excellent level of entries this year. "

This island is filled with entrepreneurs and it is they who will lead our economy and secure our place on the world stage," he said.

"It is critically important to the economy that we continue to encourage and to recognise start-up companies," commented Sean Melly of Powerscourt Investments, who was a judge for the finals.

"I would encourage all young companies to enter next year," he said.