Galway-based tech start-up Byowave has been named the overall winner of the prestigious InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition, pocketing a cash prize of €100,000.
Seedcorn is the only competition of its kind on the island of Ireland aimed at improving the investor readiness of innovative new start and early stage businesses.
As well as a substantial prize fund of €300,000 for the winners, participants in the competition benefit from business planning workshops, unique networking opportunities and access to angel investors, and mentorship support throughout the competition.
ByoWave makes modular, accessible and customisable video game controllers for people with disabilities.
The company has developed a new solution allowing users to build their own controllers based on their own physical needs, and have unrestricted access to the world of video-gaming.
Brandon Blacoe, CEO and co-founder, ByoWave, said: “Seedcorn has been a great journey for us, and we are over the moon to be named overall winners of this year’s competition.
“The Seedcorn journey has been invaluable for us, and we are grateful to the programme team for all their support and encouragement throughout the process.”
Eibhlin O’Riordan, co-founder of ByoWave said that there are millions of people all over the world with a physical disability that prevents them from using traditional video game controllers.
“Indeed, accessibility barriers affect 40% of gamers who have a disability,” explained Eibhlin.
“We have been working for the past two and a half years to develop solutions that help people overcome this barrier, and the €100,000 prize fund will go towards our product development as we build more accessible controllers to make gaming open for everyone.”
Atlas Smart Technologies, from Ballymena in Co Antrim, won the Best New Start category award and a cash prize of €50,000.
Founded in 2021 by students of Queen’s University Belfast, Atlas Smart Technologies has developed an adjustable smart dumbbell, the SmartBell, providing 26 different weight levels, and Stronger Mobile, a workout app that has already been downloaded 38,000 times since its launch earlier this year.
