AIB Discovery Programme invests in Pointy technology to help small retailers get online quickly

Pointy enables retailers to create a website listing all of their products in just five minutes by connecting its technology with the retailer’s existing barcode scanner and point of sale system. The retailer scans the products and they appear automatically on their Pointy page.  Pointy also helps retailers to appear higher on search engines.

“Almost 90pc of commerce is still conducted offline; the internet hasn’t really touched it yet,” said Dubliner Mark Cummins, who co-founded the company with Charles Bibby. “Finding products locally should be as easy as finding them on Amazon, but the reality is that many independent retailers don’t have their products listed anywhere.  Pointy solves that problem by making every product in every local shop searchable.

“Our aim was to make it incredibly easy. The shop just plugs the Pointy device in and we take care of the rest. We’ve had shops set up and go live with thousands of products in less than five minutes.”

“Pointy allows me to show what we sell online with minimum hassle and helps us rank higher on search engines such as Google,” said Andrew Verbovsky, founder of Donnybrook Bikes in Dublin. “Now, I just scan what I have in stock and it’s instantly visible on the website. Pointy helps local retailers like me get shoppers through the door, and helps consumers find what they’re looking for locally.’’

The €2m AIB Discovery Programme, which is designed to support the next generation of technology entrepreneurs in Ireland, aims to provide 20 high-potential start-up founders with up to €100,000 to validate a large, potential market need. These companies are supported at concept stage when funding, resources, and mentorship are traditionally hard to source.  This programme forms part of the Frontline Ventures l Fund Partnership of €40m.

“Irish consumers are spending an estimated €6bn online per annum of which only 40pc is being kept in Ireland,” said AIB’s head of technology, media and telecoms banking, John O’Dwyer. “A key objective of the Government’s national digital strategy is to help local retailers capture more of this market and Pointy’s innovative device is addressing that very need by taking the complexity out of e-commerce for local retailers,” he said. “There is a potential market of €3.6bn in online sales that currently leaks out of Ireland. Pointy can help Irish retailers target some of those sales.”

“Ireland has shown it can produce entrepreneurs who have the ambition to disrupt entire industries,” said  Will Prendergast, partner at Frontline Ventures. “The AIB Discovery programme is designed to support entrepreneurs of that level of ambition when they need resources to complete customer discovery.”

AIB and Frontline Ventures have announced their investment in Pointy, a new technology company designed to help independent retailers get online fast, through the AIB Discovery Programme.

Pointy enables retailers to create a website listing all of their products in just five minutes by connecting its technology with the retailer’s existing barcode scanner and point of sale system. The retailer scans the products and they appear automatically on their Pointy page.  Pointy also helps retailers to appear higher on search engines.

“Almost 90pc of commerce is still conducted offline; the internet hasn’t really touched it yet,” said Dubliner Mark Cummins, who co-founded the company with Charles Bibby. “Finding products locally should be as easy as finding them on Amazon, but the reality is that many independent retailers don’t have their products listed anywhere.  Pointy solves that problem by making every product in every local shop searchable.

“Our aim was to make it incredibly easy. The shop just plugs the Pointy device in and we take care of the rest. We’ve had shops set up and go live with thousands of products in less than five minutes.”

“Pointy allows me to show what we sell online with minimum hassle and helps us rank higher on search engines such as Google,” said Andrew Verbovsky, founder of Donnybrook Bikes in Dublin. “Now, I just scan what I have in stock and it’s instantly visible on the website. Pointy helps local retailers like me get shoppers through the door, and helps consumers find what they’re looking for locally.’’

The €2m AIB Discovery Programme, which is designed to support the next generation of technology entrepreneurs in Ireland, aims to provide 20 high-potential start-up founders with up to €100,000 to validate a large, potential market need. These companies are supported at concept stage when funding, resources, and mentorship are traditionally hard to source.  This programme forms part of the Frontline Ventures l Fund Partnership of €40m.

“Irish consumers are spending an estimated €6bn online per annum of which only 40pc is being kept in Ireland,” said AIB’s head of technology, media and telecoms banking, John O’Dwyer. “A key objective of the Government’s national digital strategy is to help local retailers capture more of this market and Pointy’s innovative device is addressing that very need by taking the complexity out of e-commerce for local retailers,” he said. “There is a potential market of €3.6bn in online sales that currently leaks out of Ireland. Pointy can help Irish retailers target some of those sales.”

“Ireland has shown it can produce entrepreneurs who have the ambition to disrupt entire industries,” said  Will Prendergast, partner at Frontline Ventures. “The AIB Discovery programme is designed to support entrepreneurs of that level of ambition when they need resources to complete customer discovery.”