In September, South East BIC put out a call for ambitious, Ireland-based innovative start-ups and scaleups to pitch in front of judges at the Big Pitch Final. The standard and quality of the applicants was exceptional – and made it a difficult job to shortlist to three. The three startup companies, GoChallenge, Celtonn and Reso Health were paired with three successful and experienced entrepreneurs – Clare Hughes of CFPharma/Telenostic, Patsy Carney of Eirgen and Rory O’Connor from Scurri -  to support them in their preparation for the big day.

Judges were Keith Brock from Enterprise Ireland, Shane Brennan of Hubspot, Georgina Carpendale of Fitzgerald Power, Niall McEvoy from Elkstone and Aileen McGrath from Kilkenny LEO, representing the Local Enterprise Office in Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, Wexford and Tipperary.

Three fantastic pitches along with a lively Q&A from the Judges resulted in the prize of €10,000 going to GoChallenge. GoChallenge brings a bold new vision for how organisations and their people connect and thrive in this new era of work. Their mission is to re-energise and reconnect the workplace by making self-care and movement part of everyone’s job description and working day.  Their health focused employee experience platform is designed to deliver a sense of community, staff retention and attraction, along with a healthy team and bottom line.  

Whilst the judges were away making their difficult decision our three mentors; Clare, Patsy and Rory, along with Anna-Marie Turley of Enterprise Ireland chatted with Aidan Shine, demystifying the seed and investment process for start-ups and telling the story of their own startup and scaling experiences.

The Big Pitch will be back in 2024 and we look forward to seeing quality applicants vying to be crowned the next Big Pitch winner.