Ludgate start-ups are winners in county entrepreneurship awards

ONE of the Ludgate Hub’s newest start-ups, Digedu was rewarded for a year of hard work when they won the Best Business Idea in the  final of Cork’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition. 

The co-founders of Digedu, Oliver Smith and Bryan Hurley, were delighted with this win in what was acknowledged to be a competitive category. Digedu is an online platform providing a range of educational and training courses.

The hub was delighted that another of its startups Stori Creative, set up by its former chief executive Grainne Dwyer, along with Fiona Dwyer and Joe O’Sullivan, won second prize in this category. The media production company is  also based at Ludgate.  

Both start-ups have received funding from the Ludgate Seed Fund to develop and scale their business, attract new talent, or develop their product or service, while locating some or all of the business in the hub. Ludgate’s chief executive  Adrienne Harrington said: ‘We are always conscious that those returning home for Christmas may wish to speak to us about how the seed fund could work for them. With this in mind, Ludgate is opening its doors on the morning of Friday 22nd December from 11am- 1pm where those interested can drop in and have a chat about the fund, take a tour of the building and generally find out more about what’s happening. Ludgate is always interested in hearing from those with good ideas who could be interested in investment from the seed fund, and enquiries can be made to [email protected].’

Other local winners included James Gale from Innishannon, founder of Stamp Owl, who received €15,000 investment in the Best Start-Up Business category.  Stamp Owl is a mobile app that lets users create and send personalised postcards. 

James also walked away with the title of ‘Best Young Entrepreneur’. The county winners will now proceed to the regionals final in January.