February 9th 2004

Dublin software start-up Eventznet Ltd. today announced that their entry into the All Island Seedcorn competition was Highly Commended. The first All-Island Seedcorn Competition was held in Q4, 2003, and was designed to help reduce the continuing gap for early stage/start-up funding on the island of Ireland. Equity Network, a major initiative of InterTradeIreland, were the promoters of the competition.

Eventznet is a web-based event marketing and management system that makes it easy for event organisers to promote their event and manage all bookings and invitations through a simple interface. Traditional methods of inviting delegates to register by post, fax, e-mail or phone, inputting each registration into a database or spreadsheet and confirming the registration with the individual, is time consuming and costly. Eventznet rolls all these steps into one automated process and saves the event organiser days of tedious data entry.

Founded in July 2002, Eventznet Ltd has been privately funded by the founders of the company, Sarah Carroll and Robert Barany and through sales of their software product. Further funding in the form of feasibility study and employment grants has been received from Venturepoint, the Dunlaoire/Rathdown County Enterprise Board. Additional funding was obtained through the Seed Capital Relief scheme.

For the competition, Eventznet had to submit a business plan that detailed the company's proposition, their market and plans for growth for the company. The plan also had to illustrate how potential investors would receive a return on their investment.

Commenting on the commendation, Sarah Carroll, Managing Director of Eventznet Ltd. said: "We are delighted to receive a Highly Commended Certificate from the board of InterTradeIreland for our entry. We will be raising funding during the second half of this year to accelerate our growth into export markets, and the assistance that Equity Network and InterTradeIreland offer to young companies like us is invaluable."

Sarah is very positive about the quality and availability of supports for start-up enterprises in Ireland. "In addition to the grant aid that we've received from Venturepoint, they have also given us access to their Mentor programme. This is saving us hours of work as our mentor has expertise in areas that we don't have and can easily point us in the right direction." Venturepoint have also recently purchased a licence to use Eventznet for their event programme, having successfully piloted it for their business networking events in 2003.