Dublin startups tell their stories.
Meet Sameh, Tim, Doychin and Javier…
Tell us about your product/service.
Intouch.com gives consumers one central place to store contact details that businesses like retailers, financial institutions and utility providers need. Our web and mobile apps act as single point-of-contact hubs, eliminating the need for users to create profiles consistently and ensuring businesses have the correct information. We use artificial intelligence, analytics and data modelling to unlock unique opportunities further.
What inspired you to start the company?
We are all international founders – Sameh is Egyptian, Tim is Dutch, Doychin is Bulgarian and Javier is Spanish. Each of us experienced a similar frustration when we moved abroad: there was no central place to manage contact information with the new companies and people we interacted. It was inconvenient to update contact details, while the wrong ones remained. Research shows that 22.5% of companies’ databases get outdated year-over-year and acquiring new details is 25 times more expensive than retaining them.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
The world’s total annual spending on data quality is $600B, and it’s increasing every year. Companies in the UK and Ireland alone are spending around $150M every year on enhancing customers’ data. Our target is to help our portfolio companies save $8B by 2020.
What’s your business model?
Our service is free for both users and businesses. We have paid features such as API integration, analytics, and open data enrichment for businesses who would like to get more from the data.
What was the funding process like?
Ireland is a good place for early stage funding. Intouch.com is the result of a merger between Qreach and Bundly, and both companies had already raised money before coming together. It was during the funding process that both companies got introduced to each other by the National Digital Research Center (NDRC) and eventually merged and rebranded into Intouch.com.
Who are your investors, how much did you raise and why does that matter?
We have raised €200K from a private angel investor, NDRC, and Enterprise Ireland. At the moment we are raising our seed round, and our current investors will make follow-up investments. We are looking for a strategic lead investor with a strong portfolio to close the round.
Who are your competitors and potential partners if any?
We see the single sign-on (SSO) solutions from Facebook, Google and Chrome autofill as our main competitors. Further, we compete directly with “Data Cleansing” companies as we are providing a different way to solve the same problem.
What are the biggest challenges your business faces today?
Companies need time to get used to the new way of data sharing. Historically data belonged to a company, while the solution we offer puts the user in control. We see our solution as DaaS – Data as a Service. Disruptive innovation always needs some time for the market to understand and adopt it.
What do you think motivated your investors to write that check?
We are not trying to create quick fixes for the existing (broken) system, but instead, are revamping the entire underlying structure of contact management. We are building a new and enhanced way of sharing data.
What milestones do you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We are aiming to close 15 more accounts within the retail segment in Ireland, raise our seed round and proceed with our patent filing.
What advice can you offer companies in Dublin who are just starting out?
Reach out to your clients as fast as you can (idea stage) to get early feedback on what you are trying to do. Most Irish companies are open to working with individuals that can help them solve large problems.
Tell us one (or more) things you love about Dublin as a startup community and as a city?
In Dublin, people from different startups are always happy to help each other and share their experience. That is a game changer since the best way to learn is from existing examples.
---
This article first appeared in the Dublin Globe. For more stories from Dublin's startup ecosystem and tech scene, visit their website.
Comments