HeyStaks to Create 20 Jobs with €1.5 million Investment from Digicel

Irish start-up company HeyStaks Technologies has raised €1.5 million as part of a strategic partnership with Digicel, to help bring its mobile Intent Analytics platform to the global market.

HeyStaks’ platform analyses smartphone behaviour to understand the intent and interests of users in a privacy-enhanced way. This enables mobile operators to better serve their customers’ needs and wants, while respecting individuals’ right to anonymity.

The development of HeyStaks Intent Analytics was facilitated by the €1.5 million investment led by Digicel with whom HeyStaks has been working with since 2013.

Previous investments totalling €1.8 million were made by The Ulster Bank Diageo Venture Fund, managed by Investec Ventures, the AIB Seed Capital Fund, managed by the Dublin Business Innovation Centre (DBIC), and Enterprise Ireland.

Based at NovaUCD, HeyStaks is a University College Dublin (UCD) spin-out company from the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) funded Clarity Centre for Sensor Web Technologies, now part of the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.

The company has developed a patented method of analysing Web usage patterns that captures the interests and intent of users as they use their smartphones to navigate the online and offline worlds.

The investment will be used to bring the HeyStaks platform to customers in Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

The creation of new jobs is also planned, with 6-10 new hires to be made within 6 months and up to 20 within a year in a combination of commercial and technical roles.

Dr Maurice Coyle, co-founder and CEO of HeyStaks said, “Mobile devices are central to peoples’ daily lives and every time we use them, we give clues about our current intent, needs and wants. HeyStaks harnesses these clues in a privacy-enhanced way to make it easier for mobile operators to deliver a satisfying, engaging experience. The new funding will help us build the team to support our growing list of global customers within a massive, growing market of mobile data analytics. While the new funding is hugely important to us as a company, having an innovative and ambitious strategic partner like Digicel will be transformative to our future.”

HeyStaks was founded in 2008 by Dr Maurice Coyle, Dr Peter Briggs and Professor Barry Smyth.