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Winning firms each scoop €100,000 at  finals

Videos of winners can be viewed here.

SOPHIA Search Ltd from Belfast and Cauwill Technologies from Limerick were each awarded €100,000 at the final of InterTradeIreland’s all-island Seedcorn Business Competition, held last night in Dublin.

Seedcorn, the largest business competition on the island with a €360,000 prize fund, aims to stimulate new start-up activity, accelerate commercial development and create more opportunities for private equity investment.

A total of 225 entries to the competition were received this year, representing a 30% increase on last year’s total and the largest number of entries received since the competition began.  

Eight companies made it through to the finals based on the quality of their business plan and an investment pitch to an independent panel of Seedcorn judges, including leading entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and private investors.  All regional winners are guaranteed to walk away from the competition with a minimum prize of €25,000 each.

SOPHIA Search Ltd, which was crowned Best High Growth Company, was founded in 2007 by Drs David Patterson and Vladimir Dobrynin.  Based at the NI Science Park in Belfast and in St. Petersburg, Russia, they have developed ground breaking semantic search technology which enables companies and organisations to intelligently search their ever increasing volumes of documents and unstructured information, whether it resides internally or external to the organisation.

Chief Executive, Dr David Patterson, said: “Winning the competition is a tremendous boost for our business.  Being selected as overall High Growth winner will bring excellent validation and credibility to our business plan and put us on a new platform with investors.”
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Meanwhile, the title for Best Emerging Company and prize fund of €100,000 were presented to Cauwill Technologies.

Cauwill Technologies has developed PinPoints – an application that helps users locate their hotel using their mobile phone.  Since the launch of the product in July 2009, the company has secured subscribers in more than 66 countries worldwide.

Co Managing Director, Dr Ronan Skehill, said: “Being recognised as overall Emerging Winner will help us gain more international recognition of our product and new access to the investment community.”

The event was attended by An Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Mary Coughlan TD, who said:  “SOPHIA Search Ltd and Cauwill Technologies are to be congratulated on their tremendous achievement here tonight.

“Both companies typify the island’s entrepreneurial spirit, using their ideas and vision to develop a product or service with innovative and commercially viable technology to break new ground in a growing market.

“InterTradeIreland’s flagship Seedcorn competition recognises and nurtures entrepreneurship, innovation and new ventures – something which is central to the island’s recovery and growth in the current economic climate.  Afterall – today’s budding entrepreneurs are tomorrow’s big employers.”

InterTradeIreland Chief Executive, Liam Nellis, said: “Once again, the quality of the business plans we received is a testament to the level of innovation and entrepreneurial excellence on the island.  

“The Seedcorn competition is now in its seventh year and has grown to become the biggest business competition on the island, covering all regions. Previous winners have to date leveraged over €103m in new equity funding since their success in the competition - we have great hopes for our 2009 winners and are proud to support them at this critical stage of their development.”

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A special award of €10,000 was also presented to Limerick company coClarity Ltd, for Best University Spin out or Platform.   The company is based in the Limerick Institute of Technology and their product, Goshido is a cloud platform.  While their first sales have been in Ireland they are about to start trials with companies in the UK, Netherlands and the USA.

NI Regional Winner High Growth Sophia Search
Dave Patterson and Alastair Kerr

Munster Regional Winner Emerging Cauwill Technologies
Ronan Skehill and Ian Rice