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 Eventovate, an award-winning Irish start-up that has developed a suite of cloud-based software for the hotel sector has just completed a funding round of €700,000 to support its continued expansion. This latest investment announcement represents one of the most significant seed-funding rounds in the emerging Irish cloud services market this year.
Eventovate's investment includes funding from Bank of Ireland Start-up and Emerging Sectors Equity Fund managed by Delta Partners; High Potential Start-up Funding from Enterprise Ireland; and funding from the AIB Seed Capital Fund managed by Dublin Business Innovation Centre.
As part of this latest funding round, both Shay Garvey, Director at Delta Partners and Alex Hobbs of Dublin Business Innovation Centre, will now join the board of Eventovate, lending their expertise and experience to support the business in its further development.
The company will use the funds to drive further business growth in a European market estimated to be worth over €260 million per annum. Eventovate already counts leading hotels such as the K-Club, Carlton Group and The Malton in Killarney among its clients. The Company is enjoying continued success having been listed in the prestigious TechCrunch Euro Top 100 in 2010.Established in 2009 by Sligo-born brothers Jonathan and Jason Ruane, Eventovate has developed a pioneering cloud-based software solution for hotels, to enable them increase revenue and manage costs specifically within their events business such as weddings. This award-winning technology provides a cohesive set of applications for both the hotel and its event customers.
The entire Eventovate solution is cloud based, which means it is deployed through the Internet on a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.
Eventovate is quickly establishing a very positive reputation as a leader amongst a new generation of innovative, high-growth Irish tech companies. The company has already received a number of industry accolades, including being selected as a regional winner in The Bank of Ireland Bright Ideas Challenge in 2010 and was a finalist in the 2011 Seedcorn competition under the Emerging Business category.
Eventovate's software platform has two core functions. The first is to provide CRM, direct marketing, business intelligence and process automation to the hotel - all entirely focused on their events business. This includes enquiry tracking, customer conversion tools, task automation, performance analysis, automated surveys and management reporting. This means a hotel can radically improve the way in which it manages its wedding business - it can convert more customers, reduce delivery costs and understand more about how well it is performing and why.
The second function (marketed as Moposa) automates and supports key elements of the event management process for event customers. For example, a bride and groom can arrange their reception seating plans, manage their RSVPs, track their budget, print guest driving directions, develop a wedding website or collate the photos and videos taken by all their guests.
Jonathan Ruane, managing director and co-founder of Eventovate said: "This investment is a very significant milestone for Eventovate and is a real vote of confidence in the business. Our long term goal is to become the leading hotel event software company in Europe. We have ambitious plans to drive the business and today's funding announcement will accelerate our ability to deliver innovation and value to our customers, as well as grow our market presence internationally. We have already started the process of recruiting highly skilled software engineers and sales professionals to support our growth plans."
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