A start-up company from the University of Limerick has been presented with the ‘One to Watch Award’ at Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas ceremony.
HookeBio, a University of Limerick spin-out, was one of ten start-up companies to pitch their new technology solutions to investors at Enterprise Ireland’s annual showcase of start-up innovation emerging from higher education institutes.
Each company had just four minutes to promote their innovations and business propositions to an invited audience made up of the Irish research and business communities, and after careful deliberation the ‘One to Watch Award’ was presented to Finola Cliffe of HookeBio for the outstanding pitch of the day.
HookeBio’s revolutionary technology, aimed at the pharmaceutical industry, will transform ‘new drug discovery’ by enabling rapid and cost-effective drug screening.
John Garvey of FarmHedge, another University of Limerick spin-out, was also selected to pitch as one of the 10 Big Ideas at the event. FarmHedge is an online agribusiness platform allowing farmers to coordinate their purchasing activity with other farmers in a low cost, flexible way.
In its eighth year, the Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas event illustrates the commercial potential of innovations from Ireland’s academic institutions across a range of sectors. This year’s Big Ideas came from the Medtech, Fintech, Agritech and Cleantech sectors and all have been through the initial process of getting their products or services ready before pitching their innovations to investors.
