Since launching in London in 2014, The Unilever Foundry platform has extended their presence in Singapore, New York, India, Brazil and China and more recently Ireland to help identify, partner, invest and grow with top Irish startups.
The Unilever Foundry will provide a clear path for Irish startups to gain access to the Unilever’s marketing expertise, massive global scale and in some instances, investment funding.
Offering a natural access point into the Irish tech ecosystem, Dogpatch Labs is working with The Unilever Foundry to develop and launch an ongoing set of programmes, workshops and startup engagement initiatives focusing on a series of challenge areas or ‘briefs’ that startups can respond to.
Dogpatch Labs’ location in the chq Building, which is home to live retailers and consumers and a growing reputation for retail and tech innovation in itself, enables a unique environment to rapidly deploy and test new technology curated by the Unilever Foundry.
The Unilever Foundry team based in Dogpatch are looking for startups to develop an innovative solution to connect 3 million ice cream cabinets to consumers in a fun and relevant way. Pending a successful pitch, startups will work in partnership with Unilever to pilot their technology and have access to mentorship and other services.
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Laundrie is an on-demand laundry and dry cleaning delivery service app.
“Unilever is the market leader in the home and laundry space. What we wanted to do was work with them in order to provide know-how and credibility in order to grow our business as much as possible.”
– Evan Grey, Founder
Buymie is a mobile app for on-demand grocery delivery.
“One of the most valuable aspects of working with Unilever was the fact that we got so much exposure and access to domain experts and industry leaders, having a chance to flesh out your business allowed us the opportunity to really identify a whole new layer of potential for the Buymie platform.”
– Devan Hughes, Founder.
On Wednesday 6th September Unilever hosted a ‘Meet The Startups’ session in The Urban Garden. 20 startups were invited to attend the event where they were introduced to the Unilever Foundry. After learning the ways in which the Unilever foundry will engage with startups, founders were invited to give short pitches, introducing themselves to the foundry team. Be sure to keep an eye out as we are sure to do a ‘Meet the startups 2’ in the near future.
A pilot serves as a test model from that it is refined and built on. Unilever seek startups who are ready to scale-up with us across geographies and brands.
Foundry Mentors is your chance to partner with one of Unilever’s 7000 marketers for 3 months, to develop your brand positioning, marketing strategy and product roadmap. Unilever Foundry also create many opportunities for startups and brands to meet in networking events, Hacks and competitions.
"This new partnership with Dogpatch Labs enables us to expand on our efforts to date in Ireland, which is an ideal test bed and can play a unique role within the global Unilever innovation eco-system while at the same time helping shift our corporate mindset and bringing more dynamism into our company culture."
"As we evolve as a startup hub and platform for innovation, we have chosen to focus our efforts on fostering key industries where we see growth prospects. There is big opportunity in the FMCG space and Unilever is a natural partner to help drive innovation in the industry."
