Making it Work

How a Dublin start-up founded during lockdown grew with remote staff in seven countries

Dimply is a high-potential start-up (HPSU) with Enterprise Ireland and has received support in commercialising the business from the agency

Colm McLoughlin, Jonathan Kane and Alan Quinlan, co founders of Dimply: firm helps financial services companies drive customer engagement

Dimply is a firm which has developed a platform to help financial services companies drive customer engagement. Customers are coached through financial decisions with the Dimply software working in the background of their own technology to provide insights.

Founded in 2020 by Colm McLoughlin, Alan Quinlan and Johnny Kane, the business has 20 staff and is remote first with staff in seven countries with an official headquarters at Dogpatch Labs in Dublin.

“We act as a financial coach, asking people questions and providing insights to bring them on the long-term journey through their banking app,” Quinlan told the Business Post.

The idea grew out of the previous roles held by the founders which involved developing financial advisory services for enterprise services.

“Alan, Johnny and myself were competing globally for tenders. We were meeting some of the largest managers of banks, insurers and reinsurers around the world. Every time we met them, it was apparent that their real problem was solving engagement with digital customers,” McLoughlin said.

“It wasn’t about selling products, it was before that. They wanted to work out how to engage with customers used to dealing with Spotify, Netflix and Airbnb.”

With the trio having decades of experience working either with or in competition with each other, they opted to pool their talents and develop a new business. Initially that began with an Australian-based fintech called Ignition before they opted to develop Dimply.

“We’ve gone from an idea to bringing on some global clients and having a mature product. We have influential Irish angel investors backing us. Across the product, platform and commercialisation, we’ve come on in leaps and bounds despite it being a hard time with lockdown,” Quinlan said.

“We couldn’t see people. We were doing virtual and socially distanced pitches and hiring. Now it’s a proper business.”

Dimply is a high-potential start-up (HPSU) with Enterprise Ireland and has received support in commercialising the business from the agency.

“They’ve been phenomenal. They’ve invested with us, we’ve been down to Australia with them for market discovery. We work closely with their people on the ground down there and did over 30 meetings in March this year in Australia,” McLoughlin said.

“We’ve also been over to Dusseldorf and Cologne with them along with their offices in London and Singapore. We work carefully with them in advance of events and plan meticulously with them, Enterprise Ireland is almost like a pre-funnel for us to get us in front of the right people quicker.”

To date, the business has raised €3.1 million which Quinlan said gives the company enough room to continue for the foreseeable future before seeking further investment.

“We’re solely selling in Ireland at present, but the pipeline is skewed towards international clients, including Britain, Asia and Australia. Our next step is to look at new markets and scale internationally. We’re hopeful of confirming a couple of clients in Britain next year,” Quinlan said.

“We want to grow in a manageable way. There’s interest in some countries, but we want to be careful about how we enter new markets, whether that’s on our own or through partners.”