Wayra Ireland selects startups for second intake

Trade

Wayra Ireland has selected 10 start-ups for its second intake, which will be entering the Academy in the next weeks. The winners were chosen from a shortlist of 19 projects by an independent judging panel following two days of pitches and training.

The judging panel consisted of Debbie Rennick (ACT Venture Capital), Tim Rea (ePlanet Capital), Barry Winkless (Katawave), Connor Murphy (Datahug), David Coallier (Engine Yard), Gary Stewart (Wayra Spain) and Eugene Mitchell (Telefonica Ireland).

Each start-up will have a dedicated workspace in Wayra and in addition to financing of up to €40,000 each will benefit from a nine month, intensive commercial acceleration programme with access to expert mentors and favourable commercial terms with leading technology suppliers including Amazon, Google, Paypal and Microsoft.

Wayra Director, Karl Aherne, said: "Once again the Irish eco-system has demonstrated its ability to produce great entrepreneurs and start-up businesses which have the potential to disrupt major markets. For the selected startups, Wayra presents a huge opportunity to drive their business forward at pace, leveraging the global network of Wayra accelerators, resources and customer access."

Launched in Ireland in September 2012, Wayra is part of a global accelerator programme for digital start-ups. Eleven startups have been accelerated in Wayra to date, during which the teams grew in size by 70% and have closed or is closing financing of over €5 million in investor capital.

The 10 successful applicants for this round were CityHook, Stylefinch, Gotcha Ninjas, Fonesense, NIVPAT, frockadvisor, Vbot, Propelad, CipherDocs, and SeeSearch.

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