Irish firm Trustev has taken home the top prize in the startup accelerator competition at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
The Cork-based company, which offers identity verification services to help beat ecommerce fraud, was among more than 1,000 initial entries to the accelerator comeptition, narrowed down to 50 finalists. Among the few who made it to the final stages was fellow Irish startup Viddyad, which was a finalist in the Innovative World Technologies category. The cloud-based, video ad creation platform won the Spark of Genius award at last year's Web Summit.
The Irish firms were among those who made presentations over two days to tech leaders at the event, culminating with Trustev winning the top prize.
"We're over the moon to be bringing this award home to Ireland. It comes at a great time for us as we prepare to open our US office in New York in just a few weeks," Trustev CEO Pat Phelan said. "Ireland had an incredible presence at the event this year.
“Once again Ireland boxed far above its weight in the global technology community. We’ve spoken to several companies who are planning to set up operations in Ireland as a result”.
It’s another award to add to Trustev’s tally, with the company named Europe’s Top Technology Startup by the European Commission last year, and Forbes magazine pinpointing Trustev as one of the hoyttest global start-ups.
The firm also raised $3.5 million in seed funding in October, one of Europe’s largest seed rounds to date.
The firm has grown from three to 19 employees in less than 12 months, with more than 100 customers in five countries.
