GirlCrew wins Irish leg of start-up competition

Social start-up GirlCrew has been named overall winner of the Irish leg of international start-up competition Start TLV.

The company beat competition from finalists including Creva Club, Popertee, Effy, Derilinx, Recipe Guru, Hello Bezlo and Traffic Attic to clinch the top prize, and will now take part in a five day intense start-up experience to learn from the start-up ecosystem in Tel Aviv and meet with leading investors and multinationals.

The winners will also be given the opportunity to attend Israel’s leading tech conference DLD Tel Aviv.

The pitching competition was held in the National Digital Research Centre (NDRC) in Dublin. The award was presented to GirlCrew co-founder and Irish Times business journalist Pamela Newenham by Israeli ambassador Zeev Boker.

GirlCrew is a global network for women to make new friends, with more than 45,000 members across 49 locations worldwide including Dublin, London, New York, San Francisco, Toronto and Melbourne.

The company joins previous winners of the Irish leg such as workforce management software company Bizimply, which completed a €2 million funding round earlier this year, and Cork founded start-up Trustev which was acquired by US listed consumer credit-rating company consumer credit-rating company TransUnion for $44 million last year.

The local competition to find the most innovative Irish start-up was started in 2013 and coordinated by the Ireland Israel Business Network, a bilateral business to business forum established in 2012, with the aim of generating the foundation of greater business opportunities and connections between the two countries.

Speaking about the Start TLV competition, Trustev co-founder Pat Phelan said: "It was incredible to see the huge volume of activity in the startup technology space in Israel which we got to see in great detail, thanks to an excellent programme of events and activities".