‘Payjack’ is an innovative solution from WorldNet created specifically for the small business sector which enables a business to accept card payments on the go by turning the phone in their pocket into a mobile virtual terminal.

A key attraction of ‘Payjack’ is the fast and easy merchant signup process. A simple, three-minute online application is followed by a 48-hour approval turnaround time. Then, after downloading the app, the business can take its first payment.

The solution was designed by WorldNet, a provider of multi-channel online payment solutions across Europe, to meet the needs of the thousands of smaller businesses in Ireland that do not currently have access to credit card facilities. ‘Over 200,000 businesses operating in Ireland today don’t have the ability to take card payments. With an increasingly cashless society, this represents a huge missed opportunity for these businesses to sell their goods and services, and to get instant payment,’ said Will Byrne, CEO of WorldNet.

One of the challenges currently facing small businesses in Ireland is cash flow. The ability to accept card payments can substantially improve this, by allowing the business to accept card payments at any time and at any location. ‘Traditionally, there hasn’t been a suitable product available for small businesses, hence the reliance on cheques and cash. ‘Payjack’ provides such a product by tapping in to the technology that’s already out there,’ says John Clarke, Head of Product Innovation with WorldNet. ‘For many small businesses and sole traders, the solution to taking card payments is already in their pocket.’

‘Payjack’ supports credit and debit cards and is available for iPhone, Android and iPad. Security is assured with end-to-end encryption – card details are never stored on the phone. Customers get a receipt by email or by text message.

WorldNet is an established Irish-based provider of multi-channel online payment solutions. Founded in 2008 by payments industry veterans Will Byrne, John Clarke and Billy Saunderson, the company’s focus is on differentiation through innovation.

Furious Tribe, the app-building company founded by IADT graduate Patrick Leddy, has secured a deal as Vodafone’s preferred provider of mobile apps to its corporate customers. The contract is a major milestone in the company’s continuing growth.

Leddy founded Furious Tribe in 2003 while studying at IADT and went on to become a tenant of the Media Cube, IADT’s on-campus incubation centre. While the company initially focused on developing apps for its clients, including names like RSA and Citi, Leddy soon realised that the real potential lay in empowering clients to build their own apps via an easy-to-use platform. In effect, the company’s Aptivate platform enables customers to create apps that can be deployed across multiple mobile devices.

With employee numbers growing to 22, Furious Tribe recently outgrew the Media Cube and have moved to a Dublin 2 location. The company has offices in London and a business development executive in New York. Leddy is also exploring the establishment of a research and development centre in Poland.

Read more at www.furioustribe.com

If you would like to attend any of these lunchtime seminars please email Fionnghuala at neillf@iadt.ie

Friday 27th April, 12.45pm, Tax Matters
Mazars, one of Dublin’s leading tax & accounting practices, are coming along to answer your questions on issues such as the Seed Capital Scheme, R&D tax credits and the new version of BES.

Thursday 24th May, 12.45pm, InterTradeIreland Seedcorn All-Island Business Competition

InterTradeIreland All-Island Seedcorn Competition

Connor Sweeney of InterTradeIreland’s Equity Network team will provide a briefing on the highly regarded Seedcorn Competition. With €280k in the prize kitty, it’s worth checking out! Find out more at:

http://www.intertradeireland.com/seedcorn/

Friday 22nd June, 12.45pm, Building the Right HR Dynamic in your Company Joyce Rigby-Jones & Fredericka Sheppard of Voltedge will share their wisdom on picking the best people, from senior hires to interns, for your team and creating a positive team dynamic.

At the unveiling of the competition poster, the Festival Director called for entries and announced the deadline – Friday 6th July 2012. Winning entries will be showcased during Blackrock Animation Film Festival 2012 (12th- 13th October) and prizes will be awarded at an awards ceremony (The BAFFAs).

Announcing the competition details and rules, Festival Director, Fionnghuala Ní Néill said:

“We were astounded at the level and quality of entries for our inaugural Festival so we are naturally very excited about this year. We hope that the Blackrock Animation Film Festival 2012 Competition will inspire people to develop and showcase their talents. We are planning a bigger Festival this year with even more screenings, talks and workshops to take place over the two day event.”

Competition entry forms and rules are available on www.iloveblackrock.ie/animation-festival. Festival updates will be announced in the coming months on iloveblackrock.ie, https://www.facebook.com/blackrockanimationfilmfestival and on Twitter, @baffa2012.

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.”



billfaster provides an online invoicing, cash management and expense tracking system, with automated accounting for start-ups and small businesses.

billfaster is the simple system for small business.
Most systems claim to be easy-to-use but we have had users send live invoices to their customers within just 4 minutes of signup. We are actually simple-by-example!

Users are up and running in 60 seconds! There is no accounting knowledge, training or upfront costs required.

Free for the basics (unlimited invoices and clients, cash management and expense tracking).
You can get valuable features such as management and financial reports from just $4.95 per month.
Also available are Simple CRM, full accounting management, cash planning etc.

Used by over 300 businesses in over 30 countries we are quickly building a global presence.

Signup today at www.billfaster.com and experience the simplicity yourself!

Phone: +353 (0)86 8069532
Email: sales@billfaster.com

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.