Technology

Irish start-up makes it onto TechCrunch Europe Top 100 list

05.02.2010
An Irish software start-up, Eventovate is one of only three Irish companies to be listed in the ‘TechCrunch Europe Top 100’, which is an index of the most innovative and highest-potential European tech companies.

Launched only last year, Eventovate has developed a suite of pioneering new technologies for the global hotel industry.

“To be included in the TechCrunch Europe Top 100 list is a tremendous endorsement for our company,” says Jonathan Ruane, managing director, Eventovate. “The fact that we were listed so highly (No 68) for a new company has meant that we have received an enormous amount of attention, especially from US investors, including the venture capital firm that led the most recent round of investment in Twitter.”

The brains behind Eventovate
Eventovate was founded by Jason and Jonathan Ruane, two Sligo-born brothers who were both working internationally with large multinationals – Jason with Intel in Israel and Jonathan with Procter & Gamble in London – before returning to Dublin to start the company in 2008. Eventovate developed the software over an 18-month period and was launched in 2009.

After signing customer contracts worth more than €150,000 in its first three months in Ireland, the company started looking to the international market and sold to its first UK customer in January 2010. It is continuing to expand in the Irish market, but expects that more than 85pc of its predicted €4.5-million revenue in 2012 will come from Europe and the US.

Eventovate’s software solution for hotels enables them to increase revenue and manage costs specifically within their events business, ie, for weddings and conferences. The technology provides a cohesive set of applications for both the hotel itself as well as hotel event customers.

The entire Eventovate solution is based on the Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, which means it is deployed through the internet. This approach massively reduces the cost of the software for hotels, but also enables a rapid global expansion from Eventovate’s Irish headquarters.

Start-up support
Since the start of its development, Eventovate has received the support of both Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Up unit, along with a number of senior board advisers including Aidan McKeon, former executive director of the main board of Allied Irish Banks, p.l.c., and Jonathan Mulligan, formerly of Baltimore Technology and currently CEO of Openplain.

Eventovate was one of only three Irish companies that made the TechCrunch list. The other two companies were Globoforce and Equiendo.

Photo: Jonathon and Jason Ruane, founders of Eventovate

Article courtesy of www.bizstartup.ie