Thanks to Gordon Smith (and John Collins in the background) for the nicely written article in the Irish Times today. It was triggered by our closing a follow on Angel Round in the last couple of weeks bringing our total to date to just under 200k.
The great news which accompanies that is the participation of Colm Lyon (of Realex Payments) in the round. He is also going to act as an adviser to us as we move to take advantage of the ongoing interest in dbTwang to accelerate a couple of the business strategies which are important to us. He will compliment Gerry McQuaid really nicely.
- Thanks to each of the existing and new investors - this is a leap of faith and we as co-founders are really aware of that.
- Thanks to Kilkenny CEB and Enterprise Ireland for their ongoing support (and no - we did not ask EI to participate in this round. Holding that for the big one early next year :-) )
- Final thanks from me personally to all of the other startup founders and CEO's who are there to support me. Bizcamp tomorrow is one of the ways in which I am trying to repay that support.
keith
Extracts from the article:
A NEW Irish-based social network hopes to help guitar collectors find out whether their battered Strat was once gripped by Rory Gallagher, or whether Jimmy Page’s fingers ever danced across the frets of an old Gibson Les Paul.
Called dbTwang, the site aims to become a trusted place on the web where players and collectors can keep information about their guitars securely, over time building a history for their instruments, be they electric, acoustic or bass.
The site will use a “freemium” business model, where many services will cost nothing, and other exclusive features will be available only to paying subscribers. Data from the US suggest the conversion rate to paying users is between 3-8 per cent of a site’s total audience, Mr Bohanna said.
Great work Keith. A sure it was a bumpy and hard ride to get this far but that is of course the fun of it all and we all dream of days like these :) Its what it is all about.
Posted by: Niall Harbison | September 18, 2009 at 09:20
WOOHOO
Great news for a fantastic team Keith
Off to loft now to dust off that Les Paul :-)
Posted by: Pat Phelan | September 18, 2009 at 09:22
Congratulations guys! That's awesome news! The article in the Irish Times is great, congratulations on that too. I'm really enjoying following your progress!
Posted by: Matt Dempsey | September 18, 2009 at 09:27
Niall - we should probably enjoy it more than we did. One of a large number of small steps which we will have to take. However much better than failing to close it.
Pat - let us know if you want to come into Beta with that dusty old relic :-)
Matt - ta. It is good coverage to get all right.
keith
Posted by: keith bohanna | September 18, 2009 at 10:33
Congrats Keith, It's great to see support for Irish startups (and well done Colm!).
Denis
Posted by: Denis Hennessy | September 18, 2009 at 11:21
Deadly news Keith, delighted for you and team.
Posted by: James Corbett | September 18, 2009 at 12:06
Denis & James - thanks for dropping in and leaving your kind words
keith
Posted by: keith bohanna | September 20, 2009 at 20:42