Irish Businesses Need Your Vote for Voom 2018

Irish businesses from across the country are looking for your vote for their business proposals in the UK & Ireland’s biggest pitching competition, Voom Pitch 2018, with a prize pot worth over €1.1M.

Launched on the 7^th March 2018, Voom 2018 is a business pitching competition like no other. Global brands including PayPal and PwC have teamed up with Virgin Media Business to give Irish and UK businesses the chance to pitch their business ideas to an esteemed panel of celebrity judges including Sir Richard Branson.

Irish businesses have been applying for their place in the competition since launch date and with the application window now closed, they are looking for you to support them by voting for their business ideas.

This year’s competition is broken into two categories, ‘Small Businesses’ with 1-19 employees and ‘Medium Businesses’ with 20-250 employees. The 40 companies with the most votes in each category will go through to the semi-final judging round in Manchester on May 21^st where they’ll have to do their best to impress the panel of judges and land one of the 6 coveted places in the final in London on May 23^rd.

This year’s Irish applicants come from all across the country including entries from Dublin, Cork, Laois and Waterford. Examples of the Irish businesses that are looking for your vote are Ruban.ie, which promotes rural and urban businesses, clubs, councils, tourist attractions and services from every town in Ireland, in one accessible online location and Property Bridges which is an innovative peer to peer platform for construction finance. Other Irish entries include Kotanical, CleverBooks, I Am Who She Creates, Junior Einsteins, UseBecause.com, Hublio, Coindrum, AAMcEvoy, Mood2Go, Kickabout App, Organic Hair Removal, UGL.ie and International Celebration of Dyslexia Event.

Speaking about this year’s Irish applicants to Voom 2018, Paul Farrell, VP of Commercial at Virgin Media said: “We’re looking for the most disruptive, original business ideas to bring to the table at this year’s Voom Pitch competition and fly the flag for Ireland in what is one of the biggest pitching competitions of its kind.”

“We’ve had strong representation in 2016 where seven of the top 40 companies in the competition came from Ireland, and we want to increase on that success this year.” He added.

Last Year, Coroflo, a Dublin-based medtech firm that has developed the world’s first accurate breastfeeding monitor, was crowned winner of the Dublin Voom Pitch Tour heat and walked away with €6,000 and an exclusive lunch with Richard Branson. In 2016, Irish start-up FoodCloud reached the final pitch of VOOM in front of Richard Branson finishing with a fantastic second place, securing the company €25,000, a Virgin Media Business broadband package, mentoring and brand support.

For more information on Voom 2018 and to vote for your favourite Irish application, visit https://voom.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/pitches