Trakax Siblings Ring Nasdaq Stock Market Opening Bell in New York

The three Irish siblings behind tech start-up Trakax got to ring the Nasdaq stock market opening bell in New York’s Time Square yesterday, 24 March.

Catriona, Cormac and Colm Barry are among the team involved in running the video editing platform and won this honour as part of the Start-Up Village Pitch Competition sponsored by Nasdaq and Enterprise Ireland Pitching at SXSW in Austin.

Having started off in the basement of their parents’ home in Rathmines, Dublin, Trakax has reached a point where the former president and CEO of Samsung Telecommunications America Dale Sohn have joined its executive leadership team and board.

Sohn was president and CEO of Samsung Telecommunications America from 2006 to 2013, and during his tenure, he built the Samsung Mobile smartphone brand to the number one position in the US ahead of the Apple iPhone brand.

He said: “I was first introduced to the Trakax team in Korea some years ago and was hugely impressed with their user design creativity and development competence and capability in the whole field of multimedia creation software.”

The company’s Android product, ‘trakax’ and the Windows PC product ‘trakaxPC’, are designed to enable users with little or no video editing experience turn their captured videos into compelling, interesting and fun movies.

Trakax allows small businesses to create interactive videos and slideshows to highlight their product offerings, which can then be quickly and easily uploaded to YouTube, Facebook or the TV screen on their premises.

It also lets businesses create podcasts, allowing them to upload conferences, speeches and training videos and share them with colleagues and clients worldwide.

“I studied Business and German in Trinity College. After various corporate positions, I had the opportunity to join my father Jim Barry and a really talented engineer Patrick Noonan in founding Trakax,” explained Catriona Barry, CEO Trakax.com.

“Initially we focused on music-related products and also carried out development contracting work. However, we changed focus around three years ago to solely create video editing software for the mass market, which we would develop, market and sell under our Trakax brand.

“We would like to become a major player in the creative video community on mobiles, tablets and desktops.”

Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland, said: “Ringing the Nasdaq bell is a great honour and a fantastic opportunity to promote Trakax to a huge and highly relevant audience.

“Their success in winning the Start-Up Village Pitch competition at SXSW in Austin clearly demonstrates the calibre of their innovation, creativity, design and technology. Trakax is a great example of a young Irish start-up with world-class technology.”