Conker Gets Investment

Conker Gets Investment

Startup, Conker, was chosen as the winner of NDRC’s (National Digital Research Centre) Lift Off Competition today (Thursday) and receives access to a €40,000 investment fund to enable it to accelerate its growth.

Conker went head-to-head with 14 other promising startups in a pitching competition which was held in front of an audience of investors and mentors as well as a judging panel. The judging panel included Shay Garvey (Frontline Ventures), who said that NDRC’s LaunchPad accelerator model has a proven track record in delivering high quality de-risked investment opportunities, and he would expect that many of those startups will secure follow on investment and continue to grow their business and create market value.

Conker aims to help game developers to earn more from free-to-play titles. It increases revenue for free-to-play game developers by tracking and analysing the behaviour of successful players who have purchased items and using that information to influence the behaviour of other players (http://www.conker.io/).

Conker will now have access to an investment fund of €40,000 plus awards and prizes from Lift Off sponsors Grant Thornton and Mason Hayes & Curran.

Tempity, An online platform which directly connects recruitment agencies with available temps, took second place and access to an investment fund of €20,000 (www.tempity.com) and third place went to Balls.ie (www.ball.ie) which builds social engagement during live sporting events. Startup, Prowlster, a personalised online lifestyle magazine with a ‘Buy It Now’ function, won the marketing award of a place on the Irish Internet Association’s Diploma in e-Commerce.

All 15 startups at Lift Off had completed LaunchPad, Ireland’s number one start-up accelerator programme. LaunchPad is an intensive three month programme which attracts aspiring entrepreneurs and recent researchers with ideas and intellectual property capable of being brought to market and achieving a commercial return. NDRC provides up to €20,000 per project in pre-seed investment to support the founders during the three month programme and participants also have the option of a further six to nine months of development time at NDRC in Dublin.

Speaking after the competition, NDRC CEO, Ben Hurley, said: “I am delighted for Conker but all 15 participants will have received a boost in their acceleration as a result of taking part in LaunchPad and Lift Off.

“Previous winners of Lift Off have gone onto great success, securing investment following the programme and growing their businesses. In fact, startup enterprises in NDRC’s portfolio have secured €10 million in commercial investment following their time at NDRC with a significant number having graduated from LaunchPad.

“Enabling new businesses to move rapidly from ideas to income and creating jobs and market value in the process is the story of NDRC and we are now looking for our next generation of startups. Applications for the next LaunchPad programme close tomorrow and I would encourage anybody with a clever idea and the ambition to bring it forward to log onto www.ndrc.ie/LaunchPad and get in contact.”

Philip Nolan from Mason Hayes & Curran said:

“Mason Hayes & Curran is delighted to sponsor the Lift Off VI competition and we ere particularly pleased with the calibre of all the startups on show. Conker were deserving winners and we look forward to working with them in the future. Organisations such as NDRC demonstrate the strength of Ireland as a tech hub and we are certain that many more ideas will be turned into income.”