Prospective entrepreneurs pitch for a place on LaunchBox 2018

Posted on: 07 March 2018

Fourteen teams comprising Trinity undergraduate and postgraduate students hoping to make a splash in the business world will today pitch their nascent ideas for companies in the hope of earning a place on LaunchBox 2018.

LaunchBox is a summer accelerator programme open to Trinity students with an early-stage business idea. The programme provides mentorship, funding, access to alumni and investors, and the ideal collaborative environment to launch new startup ventures.

The 2018 intake will be the sixth in LaunchBox’s rapidly evolving tale of success — with a host of budding entrepreneurs having used the programme as a springboard to create viable businesses across a wide range of sectors in recent years.

Since 2013, the students involved have created over 50 startups and raised over €6m in investment and funding. Their companies include social enterprise, Foodcloud (read more here), payment processing venture, TouchTech, and Artomatix, which develops tools for automating digital media creation. Among the 2017 successes was Equine Medirecord (read more here), which has developed a digital platform for recording racehorse and bloodstock medication information.

The early indications are that 2018’s teams will again look to develop a great diversity of businesses.

LaunchBox Programme Manager, Alison Treacy, said: “LaunchBox is all about empowering students to create and own their own solutions, and events like this are an exciting glimpse into what Trinity students are capable of.”

“We will have startups pitching social enterprises, we’ll have entrepreneurs with sports tech ideas, we’ll have med tech, we’ll have seaweed harvesting, and we’ll have disruptors to the restaurant industry – it’s an incredible mix that really demonstrates what institutions like Trinity and programmes like LaunchBox can help to foster and support.”

The Pitch for a Place event kicks off tonight (Wednesday March 7) at 5:30 pm at the Innovation Academy, 3 Foster Place, College Green. Tickets are free, but you must register here.

Trinity prides itself on its students’ innovation, enterprise, courage, and creativity, and LaunchBox is a perfect example. Students are empowered to forge and follow their own paths through entrepreneurship, and this is made possible through the support for such projects both within Trinity and within the startup ecosystem.

Trinity was, in the autumn of 2017 – for the third year running – ranked the #1 university in Europe for producing entrepreneurs by independent assessor, PitchBook (read more here).