Ones to Watch: UniBrowse

In our Ones to Watch section, we highlight some of the top movers and shakers in Ireland. This week we feature UniBrowse.

What is it?

UniBrowse is a search engine for college courses. It makes it easy to discover third-level courses by sifting through messy, scattered, unstructured data and presenting users with clean, clear and concise information. Students want and need simplicity; they have enough stresses in their lives with exams and projects without having to plough through multiple sites that are difficult to navigate.

“If you think of what Skyscanner do for travel, we’ve applied this to education,” the company says: “In an age when technology makes everything easier, support for students when they need it the most is lacking so we are a simple solution to a growing major global crisis.”

Who’s behind it?

The team is made up of four co-founders – Alan O’Beirne, Niall Cronin, Walter Holohan and Kenneth Casey. Alan and Niall look after the business end of strategy, operations and engagement, while Walter and Ken are top-class software engineers and make sure the site looks and feels great.

How is it funded?

To date, UniBrowse is self-funded and the founders have put up their own savings to research, build, launch and promote the site. They take pride in operating as a lean start-up and bootstrapped the site using their own business and coding experience. They will be looking for outside investment to scale internationally.

Future plans?

UniBrowse’s Irish launch has been used as an opportunity to improve the product, optimise support and simplify the service. UniBrowse will support 250m students around the world who apply to college every year, and those behind it aim to reduce dropout rates that are averaging around 60m annually and rising. The next step is Australia, and UniBrowse have already moved two of their co-founders across to start building the site.