Skippio, an Irish startup that has developed an innovative platform to enhance the fan experience at large-scale venues and events, has secured €540,000 in seed funding.

The platform tackles a common issue at large-scale events, long food and beverage (F&B) queues. Surveys show that almost 50% of fans attending an event will not join a F&B queue, while nearly 40% of those who do join a queue leave in frustration to avoid missing parts of the event they are attending.

The investment round, led by private investors with the support of Enterprise Ireland High-Potential Start-Up (HPSU) funding, will be used by the company to scale into the UK market. Skippio, founded in 2022 by Daniel Coen, is headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin.

Skippio improves the fan experience by keeping them out of F&B queues at every venue or event they attend and by allowing the user to order and pay for food and beverages from anywhere in a venue without ever having to join a queue, receiving real-time updates of how their orders are progressing, and once ready they use an express area or lane to collect their order. By reducing queues and improving efficiency, venues are also seeing significant increases in their overall revenues, efficiency and reduction in waste.

Daniel Coen, CEO and Founder, Skippio, said, “Our solution is currently reducing queue times by over 90% compared to the global industry average, ensuring fans spend more time enjoying the event they paid good money to attend with friends and family rather than standing around in queues. By significantly reducing the number of people dropping out of queues, Skippio is delivering a win-win for event goers and operators alike.”

He added, “We are delighted to have closed this seed funding round with a number of brilliant angels and Enterprise Ireland. The funding will be used to expand our business into major UK venues and events, grow our team and continue to develop our application with the customer at the forefront. We are in addition looking at more challenges around the fan experience outside of F&B that we can also help to address.”

Skippio has to date successfully completed the 3 phases of the Enterprise Ireland funded New Frontiers Programme delivered by IADT Media Cube in partnership with NovaUCD. The company was also one of the first Irish start-ups to successfully obtain Enterprise Ireland PSSF (Pre-Seed Start Fund) funding of €100,000.

Donnchadh Cullinan, Head of ICT HPSU at Enterprise Ireland commented: “At Enterprise Ireland, we understand the importance and necessity for emerging deep-tech which offers a solution adaptable across global markets. Skippio’s technology solution addresses a gap in the market allowing consumers to enjoy an event rather than spending unnecessary time queuing.

“I want to congratulate the team at Skippio on its recent investment wins. Enterprise Ireland is proud to have provided support to Skippio during the early stage of its growth journey including via the pre-seed start fund and participation on the New Frontiers programme and now more recently as a high potential start-up. Today’s announcement will further allow Skippio to scale and compete and bring its platform to the next level.”

“Our goal at Skippio is to have all the best venues and events on one platform for event goers, so users don’t have to download or login to multiple apps, that they rarely use and often delete. We plan to start rewarding users with loyalty points, discounts and free gifts very shortly with some major partnerships in the works, our aim is to be the market leader in this space,” concluded Daniel Coen.