Wattics, a NovaUCD based company, has been named the Best Emerging Company in the Dublin final of the 2012 InterTradeIreland Seedcorn all-island business competition. For winning this, Wattics will receive €20,000 in funding to further the development of this creative new venture, after beating stiff competition from two other Dublin-based companies to clinch the top prize in the final of their category. Wattics will now go on to enter the all-island Seedcorn final in Belfast on November 28th.
Seedcorn is the biggest business competition on the island for high growth and early stage companies in any sector from anywhere in Ireland and has a record prize fund of €280,000. In its tenth year this year, Seedcorn is aimed at businesses which have a new equity funding requirement. InterTradeIreland has supported over 1,600 enthusiastic new companies to date through the Seedcorn process and since taking part, previous finalists have proceeded to earn approximately €159 million in equity since competing.
Wattics has engineered an inventive software programme that connects to off-the-shelf smart meters and discreetly decodes energy patterns of individual electrical loads demonstrating energy savings for businesses. The solution works with meters used in industrial and commercial sites and delivers insights to efficiently diagnose power use and alert in real-time if a device or set of appliances are experiencing energy inefficiency. This system demonstrated its quick return on investment for the buyer through a significant reduction in energy costs. Wattics was founded by Dr Antonio Ruzzelli, Alex Sintoni and Anthony Schoofs as a spin-out company from UCD’s School of Computer Science and Informatics and the CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies.
Dr Antonio Ruzzelli, CEO Wattics said: “We are thrilled to have won the Dublin Best Emerging final. The Seedcorn competition is the best platform in the country to get in touch with investors, prove our business proposition and increase company visibility and respectability. We have learnt hugely about what an investor is expecting from a high potential start-up, about providing scalability for our proposition and how to pitch clearly and effectively our competitive advantage to a large audience. Now we’re going to put all our efforts into the national final at the end of this month.”
Professor Peter Clinch, UCD Vice-President for Innovation said: “I am delighted that Wattics, a UCD spin-out company, commercialising UCD research outputs, has been named the Best Emerging Company in the Dublin Regional Final.” He added “This win demonstrates the quality of the start-up companies emerging from NovaUCD our Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs. I wish Antonio and the entire Wattics team every success at the final later this month.”
Thomas Hunter McGowan, Chief Executive, InterTradeIreland added; “It is inspiring to see the level of innovative thinking, determination and optimism for the future displayed by businesses coming through this process.”
The all-island finals will take place on the 28 November at the Titanic Belfast building, where companies from the Northern Ireland, Dublin, Munster, Leinster and Connacht finals will compete for the overall ‘Best Emerging Company’ prize worth €50,000 or the overall ‘Best High Growth Company’ prize worth €100,000.