TechCentral.ie: Tangent gets Launchbox 2021
Ten student entrepreneurship teams given an opportunity to develop their business ideas
Trinity students and LaunchBox 2021 finalists Heather Bruton, UniPeer, Timothy Orimolusi, QRx; and Ellen Ryall, ReFunk.
Tangent has kickstarted LaunchBox 2021 to give student entrepreneurs an opportunity to develop their business ideas.
Sponsored by Tangent’s innovation partner Bank of Ireland, LaunchBox is the longest-running and most successful programme of its kind in Ireland. Established in 2013, the pioneering accelerator guides students with innovation ideas through the process of building effective ventures through collaborative workshops, expert mentorship and funding opportunities over 12 weeks.
After an application period which saw overwhelming interest from enterprising students, 10 teams collectively representing nine schools from across Ireland’s oldest university have been selected to participate. Each team has received €10,000 in funding courtesy of Bank of Ireland. The programme will conclude at the end of August with a pitch showcase for the students to present their budding business ventures known as Demo Day.
Part of Trinity College Dublin’s student accelerator programme, several LaunchBox alumni spanning the accelerator’s nine-year history have achieved success in the business world. Notable past participants include social enterprise FoodCloud, which aims to curb food waste, and payment processing venture Touchtech Payments, who were recently acquired by Stripe. Since 2013, the student ventures involved have created approximately 278 jobs and raised over €73 million in investment and funding.
“As our flagship entrepreneurship initiative, LaunchBox offers the next generation of founders unrivalled access to a wealth of industry leaders, best-in-class education, and superb networking opportunities,” said Ken Finnegan, CEO of Tangent. “I also firmly believe that any student, from any school or faculty, can become an entrepreneur and this programme certainly demonstrates that, with two Trinity School of Pharmacy students, Bidemi Afolabi and Lauren O’Reilly, winning last year’s competition with their company ProMotion. It truly is a pleasure to become acquainted with each LaunchBox intake and watch them go on to greater things.”