By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Shane Murphy and Darragh Kirby
In our Ones to Watch section, we highlight some of the top up and coming businesses in Ireland. This week we feature Coronal Travel.
What is it?
Coronal Travel is a travel technology company that specialises in group bookings and payments. Based in the NDRC, Dublin 8, the company was launched in 2014 and currently has approximately 30,000 people using the platform each year, but this is set to more than double over the next 12 months.
Operating under a number of different brands, the technology enables organisers of events and trips choose from 1,000s of products across almost 50 destinations in Ireland, the UK and Europe. The products include accommodation, activities, attractions and food and drink. The organiser then can share a link with their friends, colleagues and other potential participants enabling them to login to view and edit the itinerary as well as making payments. Coronal Travel operate in a number of different market segments including leisure (TheFoxyHen.com, TheStagsBalls.com), corporate (EverTribeHQ.com), tours (BookIrishTours.com) and educational (UniTripper.com). With a model similar to a dual sided marketplace the company have developed fantastic relationships with hundreds of suppliers over the past few years. With a “be sound” attitude to both customers and suppliers the company has gone from strength to strength.
Who’s behind it?
Product Designers and college friends Shane Murphy and Darragh Kirby are behind this growing start-up. Prior to setting up the business, the two NCAD design school graduates travelled the world chasing snow, living in Whistler Canada while snowboarding and then later in Queenstown, New Zealand before returning to Ireland to transform their passion for travel and solving problems into a booming travel and group booking business.
How is it funded?
To date this venture has been completely self-funded, with government grant support. However, it is now completely funded by revenue. All profits are re-invested to continue growth, development and customer acquisition. The lack of outside influence has enabled the growing team focus on building the best product and honing the proposition to users and businesses alike.
Future plans?
Due to the demand from many of their leisure customers asking if they could use the product for corporate events/ outings, the company has just launched a new product into the corporate market – EverTribeHQ.com.
The company already has a number of multinationals on their books as customers and this is continuing to grow. Utilising their technology, suppliers and years of experience EverTribe removes a huge amount of the administrative headaches from those tasked with organising staff outings, team-building days and corporate events.
From one place the organiser can select the ideal items to create an unforgettable experience for the staff. The system also handles all the employee invites and admin working in recording who will be attending, as well as any payments if required.
