NUA Surgical, a medical start-up from Galway has been named the Overall Winner of the InterTradeIreland Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition, pocketing a cash prize of €100,000 at the online awards ceremony held yesterday (Wednesday ).
Seedcorn is the island’s biggest business competition for innovative new start and early stage businesses in any sector. Since its inception in 2003, more than 3,100 companies have been through the programme andfinalists have raised in excess of €256m in equity funding
Its aim is to support innovative new starts as well as early stage businesses from any sector or part of the island to become investor-ready. Participants also have the chance to benefit from business planning workshops and mentorship support throughout the competition.
Based out of NUI Galway, NUA Surgical is dedicated to innovating in women’s health. They developed SteriCISION, a novel C-Section retractor that tackles the major unmet needs of the Caesarean Section (C-section ). It will largely impact clinicians, hospitals and patients to ensure a safer surgery.
This is NUA Surgical’s second year of entering the Seedcorn competition, having reached the regional finals in 2019.
Barry McCann, CEO at NUA Surgical said“Seedcorn has been a tremendous journey for us, having only reached the regional final in 2019 and now being crowned the overall winner one year later is amazing. Our success in Seedcorn is great validation of our investment opportunity it demonstrates that we are now investor ready. This win is another steppingstone in bringing the device to market, where we can really make a difference in women’s health.”
Congratulating the winners, Ken Nelson MBE, InterTradeIreland Chairman said Seedcorn aims to nurture and promote the growth of new enterprises across the island of Ireland.
"After a difficult year, it’s extremely encouraging to see the wealth of enthusiasm, innovative thinking and ambition that these businesses – both North and South - bring to the table.
“On behalf of InterTradeIreland, I would like to congratulate NUA Surgical and GenoME Diagnostics on their overall win and Sonrai Analytics as the special award winner. We wish them success and prosperity in all of their future endeavours, I have no doubt that they are destined for greatness and look forward to following their journey.”
The Seedcorn competition will open again next March. For further information on the Investor Readiness Competition visit www.intertradeireland.com/seedcorn and follow on twitter @Inter_Trade #ITISeedcorn.
InterTradeIreland’s Seedcorn Competition is the largest investor readiness competition for early stage/high growth companies in any sector on any part of the island. The competition, aimed at companies that have a new equity funding requirement, has a record total cash prize fund of €280,000.
Businesses can enter in one of the two categories; new start or early stage and there are four regions; Northern Ireland, Dublin (City & County ), Munster, and Connacht & Leinster (including counties Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan ).
Companies submit their application along with a visual representation of the business idea. Shortlisted companies are invited to submit a full business plan and, if successful, are invited to deliver an investment pitch in front of the judging panel comprising of venture capitalists, business angels and some of the island’s leading industry experts and entrepreneurs.
Throughout each stage of the competition, companies will be judged on various criteria including financial performance, company milestones and achievements, future strategy for the business, the management team in place and the quality of the pitch to the judging panel. Feedback is provided to companies at each stage of the competition process.
