SwiftComply swoops in to win Startup World Cup qualifier

16 Nov 2017

Joe Healy, divisional manager of High Potential Start-Ups at Enterprise Ireland, with Ireland regional winner Lindsey Nguyen, co-founder and head of product at SwiftComply, at the Startup World Cup Ireland qualifier. Image: Enterprise Ireland

Irish start-up SwiftComply will travel to San Francisco in a bid to secure $1m in funding.

Hospitality platform SwiftComply shrugged off competition from nine other Irish start-ups to emerge victorious in the qualifier to represent Ireland in the Startup World Cup.

The regional final took place this week in Dublin, with co-founder of SwiftComply, Lindsey Nguyen, going head to head with start-ups in a pitch battle to take the crown. Competing start-ups included HireUp, ID-Pal, Kastus, OpenBack, Exceedence, Solar AdTek, Standard Access, Sanctifly and Xunison.

The expert judging panel for the Irish event included Joe Healy, Enterprise Ireland; Barry O’Brien, Silicon Valley Bank; Charlie Ardagh, Facebook; David Bowles, Delta Partners and Thomas Olszewski, Frontline Ventures.

The Startup World Cup is a global initiative developed by Fenox Venture Capital that offers start-ups the opportunity to win $1m funding at the world competition stage.

Pure grit

“The pitches at the regional qualifier were all fantastic – however, the grit, determination and ambition displayed by SwiftComply was of outstanding standard,” said Healy.

“Enterprise Ireland supports entrepreneurs with global ambition who lead Irish start-ups that have the potential to scale internationally, and we are delighted to be part of an initiative that has helped to catapult a deserving company onto the global stage.”

SwiftComply is a platform that connects restaurants, cities and contractors to make environmental compliance easy. The company received High Potential Start-Up status from Enterprise Ireland in early 2017, and opened an office in the US this summer to be closer to US customers.

The start-up – led by Michael O’Dwyer –  took part in the Techstars programme in 2016, and earlier this year secured a $900,000 investment led by the former COO of Facebook, Owen Van Natta.

The Startup World Cup conference and final competition will take place in May 2018 in San Francisco, California, and will see the top start-ups, VCs, entrepreneurs and tech CEOs from regional rounds across the globe compete against each other.

Previous judging panel members included Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

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

editorial@siliconrepublic.com