IBM SmartCamps are designed to provide entrepreneurs with the mentoring and insight needed to innovate in their markets. Past participants from IBM SmartCamp competitions have captured the attention of the venture capital community with nearly $50 million in investments, and have expanded to new global markets.
Profitero helps its clients increase sales and maximise profits by leveraging high-quality online competitive data at scale. This, in turn, allows businesses to react quickly to changes in their competitors’ prices. To date, retailers and manufacturers have found Profitero’s data essential for pricing strategy, forecasting, price management, merchandising planning, product promotions, and market/brand positioning. Profitero is currently monitoring 27.5 million products across 2,500 European retail websites, and it plans to grow this to 100 million products in 2012.

“We are honored to be named the IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year,” said Volodymyr Pigrukh, chief executive officer and co-founder, Profitero. “Our solution is a natural complement to IBM’s smarter commerce strategy. We are looking forward to working with IBM and its network of technical experts, business partners, venture capitalists, academics and clients to capture our share of the smarter commerce opportunity.”

IBM SmartCamps bring together innovative entrepreneurs with venture capitalists, academics and other industry leaders to provide coaching and critical industry support and advice. The IBM SmartCamps are designed to provide these entrepreneurs with the mentoring and insight needed to continue to drive growth and innovation in their markets.

Profitero was named as the winner of the 2011 IBM SmartCamp London in November 2011. Profitero was selected from more than 80 entries from the UK and Ireland. The company “won due to its outstanding technology, innovative business plan and alignment with IBM’s Smarter Planet strategy,” said IBM. They will now compete against other SmartCamp winners from around the globe to compete for the title of “IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year.”

The company helps retailers maximise profits by analysing online competitive information on thousands of products and dozens of competitors, helping to build smarter retail solutions. Today, 83 per cent of mid market CIOs surveyed by IBM have identified analytics, the ability to extract actionable insights from “Big Data” as their top-priority investment area.Profitero represents a new generation of entrepreneurs who are entering the market with technology and business model designed to capitalise on this trend, said IBM.

The IBM SmartCamp Global Final will take place over four days: broken into master class day, mentoring day and the public finale. Teams and mentors will travel to San Francisco from Brazil, China, Romania, Spain, India, Romania, Israel, Ireland and the US. There will be live streaming of the event on the IBM website. “We are delighted to have won the London IBM SmartCamp award for 2011 and are looking forward to the challenges of the global final in San Francisco,” said Vol Pigrukh, chief executive and co-founder of Profitero.

“Entrepreneurs are critical to driving the next era of innovation and growth. I’ve been hugely impressed by the range and quality of start-ups we’ve seen entering the London IBM SmartCamp programme. Congratulations to Profitero and all the finalists. They’ve showcased solutions that seize major growth opportunities in the market to help make the world work smarter,” said Stephen Leonard, chief executive, IBM UK & Ireland.

For more information on IBM Smartcamp, visit www.ibm.com/ie/smarterplanet/smartcamp.

For more information on the IBM Global Entrepreneur Programme, visit
www.ibm.com/isv/startup.

For more information on Profitero, visit www.profitero.com

Billfaster, a media cube company has this week raised €330,000 in funding including an Enterprise Ireland contribution through the High-Potential Start-up (HPSU) programme.

Billfaster’s headquarters are in the Media Cube, Dún Laoghaire, where it is currently participating in the Create programme for start-ups. 
It also has a base in New York City. Billfaster also says it expects turnover to be €1.5m, and to employ 15 more people within the next three years.

So what’s the Billfaster premise that has gleaned Enterprise Ireland’s plus other investors’ attention?

The company has created an online system whereby business owners, particularly SMEs, can create and email invoices, manage cash and cash-registers, keep track of expenses and stay on top of taxes.

Director Rod Condell explained today how the Billfaster system is very fast to set up, citing the example of a company that recently signed up to Billfaster at 10.45am.

“By 10.49am they sent their first live invoice with absolutely no training.”

He said that the €330,000 investment will allow it to scale up its global business, which currently has over 5,000 users.

Most of Billfaster’s customer base are start-ups, and include everything from restaurants, interior designers, car hires and detective agencies.

Simple online functionality

Billfaster began developing its software in late 2008. The idea, explained Condell today, was that the system would be simple enough that anyone could use it, yet functional enough that any business would want to use it.



“We’ve found a nice balance between functionality and ease of use by making it ‘simple by example’,” he said.

“We have automated the accounting in the background so business owners don’t need any accounting knowledge or software training to be able manage their business finances. We have also incorporated a cash planning tool to help start-ups succeed in their formative years.”


“The basic Billfaster service is free, but for more comprehensive reporting and tools, premium versions start from less than €4 per month to €10 per month.”



Profitero has developed a pricing service to simplify the complex and time-consuming process of monitoring competitors’ products online, which enables retailers to be more efficient and effective with their pricing strategy. The Profitero pricing platform reduces the manual effort involved in collecting and assessing pricing information, helping retailers to increase sales and profit margins.

Retailers use the software to monitor online prices, stock availability, shipping costs and benchmark product prices against their competitors; retailers can also duplicate the online prices in stores. With more and more retailers moving online, the company is also replacing the need for in-store price checks, which are done by offline retailers, with its robust, efficient online price collection model. They also plan to expand to the US market.

Currently monitoring 27.5 million products across 2,500 retail websites, the company hopes to grow this number to 100 million by June 2012. Profitero customers include, among others, market research group Nielsen and leading retailers such as Tesco Direct and Worten.

Profitero was established in 2010; its co-founders Volodymyr Pigrukh, Dmitry Vysotski and Kanstantsin Chernysh built up their expertise in scalable technologies and enterprise sales while working at Google, IBM and Microsoft in Dublin.

A winner in the Seedcamp 2010 competition, and finalist of Dublin WebSummit 2010, Profitero also claimed the Irish Innovation Cubed award, which was run by Media Cube, IADT which provided them with one year of free office space in Media Cube, a campus-based digital media incubation centre in Dublin, Ireland.

Delta Partners is a venture capital firm investing primarily in Ireland and the United Kingdom. It has €250 million under management. Delta is among the most active early-stage investors in Europe, with a strong focus on investing in early stage technology companies. Enterprise Ireland works with entrepreneurs and business managers across the full business development cycle; its priority is to grow export sales from Irish-owned companies. UK-based start-up venture fund Seedcamp and serial entrepreneur and angel investor Simon Murdoch, former vice president of Amazon.co.uk and now venture partner of UK-based Octopus Ventures, are also equity investors in the company.

Then they discover more cows who have also been affected by the lightning. They team up and proceed to “borrow” an RV and go on a tour around Ireland, accidentally catching criminals and testing out the sports equipment that they find in their getaway vehicle!

The characters include Christy, a young bullock without fear or common sense, Dee, who has been transformed by lightning into a computer boffin, Bernie the Femme Fatale, Peadar who is a fluent Irish speaker, Angus, a brawny Scottish bull, Heffernan, a mechanically-minded heifer and bossy Pat, who erroneously believes he is the leader and the brainiest and most street savvy of the pack.

As they travel they discover the secret world of the Irish people – but will we ever discover what made the Mad Cows so human?

The series is aimed specifically at 6 to 10 year olds, but has the potential to become a cult favourite, regardless of age!!

Further Information:
Keg Kartoonz are an animation production company based at Media Cube, IADT, Kill Avenue and are the creators of the popular Fadó Fadó series. For more information contact Fionnghuala Ní Néill, Media Cube, IADT, Kill Avenue at 01-2394750.

The Blackrock Animation Festival 2011 was launched with a call for entries at the Media Cube, IADT. Details and rules for entry can be found at http://iloveblackrock.ie/animation-festival

Organised by the Blackrock Business Network and supported by the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Design and Technology (IADT), the Festival will include screenings and award presentations for winning entries. Blackrock Animation Festival events will take place on Saturday 27th August.

To showcase the animation competition entries, a selection of films will be shown on Saturday 27th August at the Blackrock ‘Pop Up’ cinema at Urban Junction, Main Street, Blackrock, Co.Dublin and awards and prizes will be presented.

A Blackrock business community initiative, the purpose of the Animation Festival and Competition is to encourage emerging and existing talents in animation and storytelling both in Ireland and abroad. This is the first year of these awards and it is planned that this will be a yearly event.

Speaking at the launch, Festival Director, Fionnghuala Ni Neill said: “Blackrock is a thriving and vibrant town and our Animation Festival will reflect the diversity of businesses here as well as the range of events and activities going on. The Irish animation industry is hugely important to Ireland and is well regarded internationally. The talent is exeptional and we are thrilled as a town to showcase it.

Media Cube Manager, Martin Hogan commented: “I would like to congratulate Fionnghuala and members of the Blackrock Business Network on their sterling work designed to showcase Animation and Animation Graduates. I have no doubt that the Blackrock Animation Festival will become a well regarded annual event.”

Profitero, based in Media Cube, the only digital media campus based incubation centre in the country, has put giant retailers such as Asda, Tesco, Amazon, Argos and Dixons Media company on the alert by releasing an infographic based on their research of 17,697 prices from online retailers that were collected across the UK. Now they are targetting the Irish online retail market.
Martin Hogan, the Manager of Media Cube commented, “There are some companies you instinctively know are going to succeed and Profitero not only had a good product and sound business plan, they were also hungry to succeed. ”

Competitor monitoring, which includes tracking competitors’ prices, stock availability, new and delisted products, is a key element in successful price management for online and offline retailers. It is also a time consuming task. Profitero offers an easy to deploy web service that solves this problem in minutes. When a retailer is able to view a rival’s prices it allows them to formulate better offers to win back the consumer almost immediately. Profitero also offers an Alerts service that also informs retailers when their prices are too low or too high. This data driven insight gives retailers the opportunity to react to competitive price changes as they happen and to formulate better offers to win back the consumer almost immediately.

With over 40,950,000 internet shoppers in the UK alone, over 30,712,500 of these consumers shop based on the best price offered to them. Profitero have researched how UK online retailers rank by price in the most popular categories. These categories researched include ‘DIY Car and Garden’, ‘Sound and Vision’ and ‘Home Electrical’ to name but a few.” explained Volodymyr Pigrukh, CEO of Profitero.
“As the brighter, longer evenings and DIY season are upon us UK consumers may be interested in Profitero’s findings that out of the retailers researched, Asda is the cheapest for ‘DIY Car and Garden’ category. However, within the categories of ‘Home Electrical’ and ‘PC and Gaming’, Amazon and Dixons are the cheapest online retailers from the sample to shop.”

“There is a definite need for Profitero in the Irish retail market. Irish consumers are more budget and value conscious than ever before and we aim to capture that data so that the Irish shopper will be informed of their options before they buy.”
Profitero is a company that had been recognised as “one to watch” from it’s start up phase. It was one of the winners of the European Seedcamp 2010 competition and the winner of Irish Innovation Cubed 2010.

PROFITERO WIN AGAIN

Profitero, the digital retail analysis company, who offer a competitor monitoring service for on-line retailers have today won the Innovation Cubed 2010 competition held by the business centre, Media Cube in Dun Laoghaire. This is their second win over the last year, having already won a Seedcamp New Business Funding Award in the best start-up business category.

The Innovation Cubed  backed by Microsoft, Enterprise Ireland, Bank of Ireland and local government  launched in early December and offered a prize of a year’s free office space worth €7,500 based in the modern fast broadband facility, Media Cube. The centre is the only campus-based digital media and creative software incubation centre in the country.

The panel of judges for the event included Paul Rellis, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland, and the overall initiative was developed by Martin Hogan, Manager of Media Cube, who himself has direct experience of leading start-up businesses.

Since opening in early 2007, Media Cube has proved successful in attracting and promoting start-ups in digital media and software, helping them to develop, facilitating networking and promoting business and research opportunities.

Speaking about the competition Hogan said:  “This initiative arose from recognising that reports extolling the virtues of supporting the smart economy were virtually worthless unless practical supports were offered to high quality start-ups and SMEs focusing on digital media.”

Commenting on winning Innovation Cubed, Founder and CEO of Profitero, Volodymyr Pigrukh said: “The last year has definitely been a good year for Profitero. Media Cube has a deserved reputation for supporting digital businesses and we are looking forward to 2011 and working in our new office!”

This is the second year in a row that the centre has run such an event focused on identifying new digital media and creative companies with potential and rewarding the best of them.

Media Cube Manger, Martin Hogan, himself with direct experience of leading start-up businesses, has been vocal in calling for more support for start-up companies particularly in the digital sectors.

According to Hogan, “We are not short in Ireland of reports and strategy documents on the overused terms of the “smart, knowledge, green and now innovation-economies.” What we lack are real supports and funded initiatives to translate what have become clichés into well planned development assistance for start-ups and SMEs. Unless these are in place the reports produced are of little value.”

Since opening in early 2007, Media Cube has proved successful in attracting and promoting start-ups in digital media and software, helping them to develop, facilitating networking and promoting business and research opportunities.

Speaking about the competition, Hogan said: “We are targeting applications from 60 high-quality start-ups and SMEs from across the region. The finalists will receive advice from some of the most experienced businesspeople in the country and will compete to join the community of highly successful companies in Media Cube rent free for one year.”

 “What we are looking for is a dynamic digital company that works on content or software, which has passed the initial start-up stage and is looking to expand and reach the next level of development and market placement. Media Cube’s goal is to support companies to achieve their potential,” he added.

The judges for Innovation Cubed are industry leaders in the sector: David McRedmond, CEO, TV3; Paul Rellis, managing director, Microsoft Ireland, and Andrew Collins, managing director and owner of 123.ie.

The 2009 winners were Richie Conroy and Mark Hodgkinson of Snowluke Pictures. The company has just produced a second series of its football series Fran, which will soon be shown on Setanta Sports.

“As a winner of the competition in 2009 we have benefited greatly from our new home. Apart from advice and support, an exciting benefit to our location in the Media Cube is working with other digital companies in the centre. The prize and recognition has given us new confidence, we have secured development deals and funding over the last year and are now looking further afield for opportunities,” said Conroy of Snowluke Pictures.  

The competition, which was launched with Bartley O’Connor of PWC, will receive applications until the 3^rd of December.

More information is available at www.innovationcubed.ie

Bgate has already won the Systems Integration Company of the Year Award at the ICT Excellence Awards 2010 for its order-capture and invoicing system. The Bgate software is called Smart Business and connects buyers and suppliers over the web while eliminating replication of entry across the supply chain. The purpose of the software is to eliminate unnecessary tasks for customers and increase efficiencies by several orders of magnitude.

Bgate’s system was conceived and developed by Simon Lunt, co-founder and formerly the Head of Product Development at Riverdeep, the educational software company.

With Bgate Smart Business, Simon has developed a unique approach to software design that balances powerful functionality with instantly understood controls. The result is a system that requires little or no training and fosters long-term user loyalty.

Bgate users include some of Ireland’s best known companies such as Burger King, Eddie Rockets, Allied Foods and Johnston Mooney & O’Brien.

Quote from Simon Lunt: “Bgate bridges the information gap between business partners with simple-to-use tools that deliver accuracy, transparency and efficiency to all parties”

Quote from Martin Hogan, Media Cube Manager: “Bgate has validated yet again that true innovation is developed from finding solutions to real business challenges and improving costs, standards and efficiencies. I would like to congratulate Bgate on their nomination and I am confident of their continued success because of their ethos to providing a quality service to their customers.”