NovaUCD-based company, Wattics, has been named the Best Emerging Company in the Dublin final of the 2012 InterTradeIreland Seedcorn all-island business competition. Wattics, a spin-out from University College Dublin, has engineered an innovative software solution that connects to off-the-shelf smart meters and discreetly decode energy patterns of individual electrical loads demonstrating energy savings for businesses.
The solution works with electrical, gas, water and heat meters used in industrial and commercial sites and deliver pioneering insights to deeply diagnose power use and alert in real-time if a machinery or set of appliances are experiencing energy inefficiency. The system demonstrated to significantly reduce energy cost in industrial and commercial settings and to provide a very quick return on investment for the customer. Wattics was founded by Dr Antonio Ruzzelli, Anthony Schoofs and Alex Sintoni as a spin-out company from UCD’s School of Computer Scienceand Informatics and the CLARITY Centre for Sensor Web Technologies.
Wattics beat tough competition from two other Dublin finalists in the category to win Eur20,000 to help finance the innovative young venture. The company will now go on to compete in the all-island final of the competition, which will take place on the 28 November 2012 at the iconic Titanic Belfast building.
Now in its tenth year, Seedcorn is the island’s biggest business competition for early stage/high growth companies in any sector, from any part of the island. The competition, aimed at companies who have a new equity funding requirement, has a record prize fund of Eur280,000. To date, InterTradeIreland has supported over 1,600 enterprising companies through the Seedcorn process and previous finalists have gone on to leverage around Eur159 million worth of equity since taking part. The Seedcorn competition is considered an important barometer for new and emerging companies among the investment and business communities.