Web 2 Ireland

The deadline for the all-island SeedCorn competition might seem far away but considering you have to deliver a full Biz plan, it isn’t really.

The first step is to register your interest which just takes a minute. They then send you a link to a guide and to the upload URL for your biz plan.

Deadline for final delivery of Plan is September 26th.

The total prize fund is €280,000 and the prizes are as follows:

• €100,000 for overall Emerging International Company
• €50,000 for overall Emerging Company
• 3 x €20,000 for regional Emerging International Companies
• 3 x €20,000 for regional Emerging Companies
• €10,000 for best venture stemming from a university spin-out or platform programme

Are you in a small startup? Thinking of doing one? No access to capital? Possibly lacking some business experience? But dammit you want to build something!

Or maybe your employer, the bank, hedge fund or insurance company is going through meltdown and you think – time to move.

Then have a look a SeedCamp:

As their site says:

Seedcamp is where Europe’s top young founders can come together in one place. From securing funding to developing the right network, young entrepreneurs in Europe face challenges in building globally competitive technology businesses. Through the provision of seed capital and a world class network of mentors, we want to provide a catalyst for Europe’s next generation of entrepreneurs.

The process is simple; you apply here, those shortlisted go to London for Seedcamp Week and then the best of the best are then picked to be part of Seedcamp.

I don’t know how many Irish companies applied last year but your continental European peers are jumping all over this. At the very least it is worth a look. Some great thoughts on the topic from Saul Klein.

We’ve written about the Eircom Web Innovation Fund before. The deadline for receipt of applications is 5pm on Friday 15th Feb.

This is a fantastic opportunity if you have a great idea but not the funds to build something new. Remember, you don’t have to be a developer to get involved in this. If you think your idea has wings then try and find people of a similar mindset and apply together. An ideas person with some marketing cop-on along with a sharp developer is one combination that makes a lot of sense.

It would also be fantastic to see teams from the third level postgrad programmes apply. So if you are in UCC, CIT, UCD, TCD etc etc etc , get that application in.

The areas in which Eircom is particularly interested are Discovery, Messaging, Voice, Location, Publishing, Communities, Content creation, Advertising and Identity.

I just got a mail from a Web2Ireland reader wondering about which banks here “get” ecommerce. His story is as follows:

I wonder if you or your readers can give me some advice on the best banks for ecommerce start-ups. The reason I ask is that I work for a training business and we added a course booking function to our site last year. When we applied for a merchant account with BOI’s merchant account arm called Evalon we had to jump through hoops.

Their problem was to do with the buyer not being present and that we didn’t sell a physical product, and that the life span of the product could be several months (because a language courses can be up to a year). Their fear was
that a student could theoretically request a ‘charge back’ on their credit card if they had a problem with their course.

We argued that this just wouldn’t happen and that if there was a problem we would sort it out by other means. Eventually they approved our application, after threatening letters to and intervention by our bank manager and a huge cash security.

I wonder if your readers have experience with these types of issues, and whether they know of a bank (with a merchant arm) that is more welcoming to these types of transactions?

This isn’t something I know anything about and I think we could all gain a great deal if we heard other stories/advice in this area.

The Enterprise Ireland Informatics Research Showcase 2007 is being held on the 3rd of October in the Dublin. These 2 Irish Web2.0 products are on show and looking for ‘commercial exploitation’:

Make instant messaging work for you;
Product Name: Zimbie (Waterford Institute of Technology)

RSS feed and information aggregation;
Product Name: FeedHenry (Waterford Institute of Technology)

Register for the event.

I’ve just heard (via Joe Drumgoole’s blog) that the new BES limits annnounced last November have finally been passed by the EU. This is fantastic news. Start applying now.

This is the official EU newsletter announcement:

N 287 / 2007 – Business Expansion Scheme (BES), incorporating the Seed Capital Scheme (SCS).
Member State: Ireland
Primary Objective: Risk capital
Aid instrument: Provision of risk capital
Tax allowance
Case Type: Scheme
Duration: from 01.07.2007 to 31.12.2013

Notification or Registration Date: 23.05.2007
DG Responsible: Competition DG
Related Procedures: N 311 / 2004

Decision on 23.08.2007: Article 4§3 – decision not to raise objections