Vizlegal sparkles and Glissed glistens at NDRC Investor Day

15 Dec 2016

From left: David Tighe, head of innovation, Bank of Ireland; Ben Hurley, CEO, NDRC; with Glissed founders Louise Dunne and Niamh McHugh. Image: Shane O’Neill

Digital start-ups Vizlegal and Glissed secured €30,000 and €20,000 respectively at the NDRC Investor Day yesterday.

The Investor Day (14 December) was judged by Ben Hurley, CEO of the NDRC, as well as Deirdre Terrins from Crescent Capital, Kathy Kelly from Atlantic Bridge and Stephen McIntyre of Frontline Ventures.

Pitches were made by 20 companies that have emerged from NDRC’s pre-seed investment programmes including LaunchPad, Catalyser and VentureLab.

‘Investor Day is a true test for each of the emerging companies, where they have gone through a process of commercialisation, developed their marketing approach and refined their business plans and projections’
– BEN HURLEY

They also include start-ups emerging from NDRC’s pilot Female Founders programme, run in conjunction with Enterprise Ireland and Bank of Ireland, which sponsored the event.

The winners

Vizlegal sparkles and Glissed glistens at NDRC Investor Day

David Tighe, head of innovation, Bank of Ireland; Ben Hurley, CEO, NDRC; with Vizlegal co-founders Jose Alberto Suarez Lopez and Gavin Sheridan. Image: Shane O’Neill

Winning venture Vizlegal converts fragmented pieces of legal information, such as court judgments and filings from multiple jurisdictions, into structured data.  There are tens of millions of such documents online and tens of thousands published daily. On top of this data, they build tools and services for legal and other industries, which help them to use this information.

The company’s founders are Gavin Sheridan (CEO) and Jose Alberto Suarez Lopez (CTO). Sheridan is a former director of Storyful.

Also securing funding at NDRC Investor Day was Glissed, a Siliconrepublic.com Start-up of the Week previously known as Pucker, which is an online marketplace where freelance beauty professionals offer their services, and consumers make appointments in their homes, offices or hotels. The beauty professional goes direct to the client and payment is made securely online.

Company founders Louise Dunne and Niamh McHugh participated in the NDRC Female Founders programme.

Other start-ups who pitched on the day included: Audisense, Biome, BookmyRadiology.com, Clubify, EnteraSense, Local, Luvguru, Outfitable, Yap, ChildDiary, Contomply, EuroComply, Mobility Mojo, Oathello, Onestepcloser.to, Seamless, Tandem HR and Tosca.

A true test

“Investor Day is a true test for each of the emerging companies, where they have gone through a process of commercialisation, developed their marketing approach and refined their business plans and projections,” said Hurley.

“In doing so, they have enhanced their investment readiness and are now in a position to seek support and backing from the investment community.

“Vizlegal and Glissed emerged today as well-defined prospects for future investment, and there are many more who have very considerable potential to attract investor interest as they continue to grow their businesses. It’s clear that there is a vibrant entrepreneurial culture in Ireland, where we see a pipeline of high-potential companies and continuously strong investor interest in NDRC programmes.”

To date, NDRC has invested in over 200 companies. Its portfolio of companies have a market cap of over €328m. Recent NDRC alumni include Boxever, Nuritas and Soundwave.

“NDRC has a world-class approach to translating digital ideas into promising new ventures with a global outlook,” said David Tighe, head of innovation at Bank of Ireland.

“At Bank of Ireland, we believe that the development of scalable businesses contributes to jobs creation and economic growth, where we’re delighted to bring our domestic and international experience to bear for start-up entrepreneurs in partnership with NDRC.”

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com