Three young Fingal entrepreneurs have flown the flag for the county at the regional finals of the inaugural ‘Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur’ competition, which is offering an investment prize-fund of €2 million.
All under the age of 30, the local business owners and new start-ups went head-to-head with other winners from Dublin City, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and South Dublin on Thursday 6th November, in the competition co-ordinated by Local Enterprise Office Fingal.
Launched by the Government earlier this year, Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition is an integral part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2014 and is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through the 31 Local Enterprise Offices around the country.
The Fingal winners, who were selected to represent the county at the regional finals, are:
Best Start Up Business and ‘Best Young Entrepreneur’
Ben Millett (25) Stayhold Ltd. www.stayhold.com based in Swords, Co. Dublin
Launched in July 2013, this Irish-designed product sticks to the carpet in the car boot and prevents loose objects from rolling around. The company now supplies The Home Depot in the USA along with other retailers / distributors worldwide. Having introduced Stayhold Mini to the product range, the aim is to grow the business by creating sales in other territories while further expanding the product range and establishing the brand as the number one name in car storage solutions. The company has grown significantly over the last year in both sales and forward orders. www.stayhold.com
Best New Idea (Not yet established) Category
Joseph Kuye (19) Touchtech Payments from Tyrellstown, Dublin 15
Joseph is from Tyrrellstown and at 19 years old, is a student at Trinity College. Touch Tech is an m-commerce payment processor for mobile shopping applications, that enables consumers who are using these mobile applications to pay for merchandise by simply tapping the back of their phone with their card and entering their pin when prompted to do so. This is beneficial to merchants and banks as a fraudulent transaction can never be made using the system saving them hundreds of millions of potential profit each year that are lost to charge-backs. Touchtech Payments have an office in Launchbox in Trinity College (http://www.launchbox.ie/2014-teams).
Best Established Business with new add on (over 18 months)
Dan Davern (28) DX2Training www.dx2training.ie based in Swords, Co. Dublin
Dan has developed an add-on to his existing Health and Safety training, consultancy and supplies business, which comprises a fully 3D animated and customised online learning management system for individual customers. Available in 30 languages and fully exportable, it can be tailored for European and Worldwide markets.
The competition was strong with the judging panel commenting on the difficultly in choosing between finalists. The Fingal finalists were highly commended by the judges but finalists from the other Dublin counties were selected to represent Dublin in the National Final.