Francis Yates, Blazer

LaunchBox welcomes latest round of accelerator entrants

Trade
Pictured: Francis Yates of Blazer, a LaunchBox start-up working on a way to protect honey bees from dangerous mites

13 July 2015

Eleven teams of students entrepreneurs have been accepted into the third round of Trinity College Dublin’s LaunchBox start-up accelerator.

Eight teams of the successful teams will receive funding in addition to office space and mentorship from successful entrepreneurs for the next three months. Three more boot-strapped teams are receiving programme support without funding.

The start-ups will have access to the space and facilities needed to test out and launch new ventures. The accelerator programme focuses on product validation, product development and future strategy.

This year Launchbox has progressed from a three-month accelerator to a 12-month programme, including an idea workshop series and a pre-accelerator element to help potential applicant teams develop from early idea stage to prototype stage.

All 11 teams are now working to deliver investor-ready ventures by the end of the summer, eight of which will be receiving funding, while the remaining three bootstrapped ventures will only have access to the accelerator’s facilities.

The eight funded start-ups are airline e-payment system developer Aerocoin; honey bee protector Blazer; guitar analyst Composure; telecoms infrastructure manager SiteSpy; gig-founding website Stageville; student learning material and support network Unituition; pharmacology learning platform developer Visual Learning Studious; and Sooskan, which is developing a hyperlocal shopping app for delivering special offers to users based on GPS.

The selected bootstrapped start-ups are Sensa FX, a health tool that addresses the problems of anxiety, lack of concentration and motivation; Bachelor’s Box, a monthly men’s accessories package; and Trinity Global Gateway, which will provide placement opportunities for students in developing countries.

LaunchBox is supported by a syndicate of Trinity angels, Citi Group and Trinity College Dublin.

Dr Diarmuid O’Brien, Director of Trinity Research & Innovation, said: “The commercial success of our 2013 and 2014 teams underlines how this programme can help students develop their ideas and create new sustainable companies which generate interesting new products and services, creating many new jobs. LaunchBox is unique in that it has now extended to a 12-month programme which provides Trinity students of any skillset the option of starting up a new business venture with mentorship and funding programmes in place to support growth.”

Past LaunchBox programmes include social enterprise Foodcloud that Irish superstores’ surplus food and Touchtech, a payment processing venture now working with payment giants such as Visa.

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