THE Sandyford-based messaging services company, Cadoo, has announced a €250,000 investment that will fund 20 new Dublin-based jobs over the next two years.
The Cadoo platform enables educational institutions to send unlimited free messages such as school closure alerts, notification of events, and appointment reminders to an unlimited number of contacts. It also allows receivers to respond to the sender privately, on a one-to-one basis.
Cadoo has ambitious growth plans – aiming to reach one million users by the end of 2020, including 700,000 internationally. To realise its global growth targets, the company plans to open a UK office later this year.
The funding will lead to the creation of 20 new jobs over the next two years.
The company has received the €250,000 from the founders of IT services company, Paradyn, along with a grant from Enterprise Ireland. Currently, Cadoo is recruiting software developers, user support personnel and business development executives.
The app is aimed primarily at schools and universities with 4,000 active users currently signed up to the Cadoo platform following a successful pilot programme.
The user-friendly dashboard means that users can manage contact lists, create messages and monitor responses, with the ability to send rich media files such as JPEG and PDF, for free.
There are no set-up costs, download charges, monthly charges or flat fees.
The messaging platform also offers senders the option to identify communications as high priority and in circumstances where the Cadoo message hasn’t been opened within a specified timeframe, the app resends the message as an SMS.
For recipients who have not signed up for the service, the platform sends the message as an SMS. Recipients can easily unfollow organisations they no longer wish to hear from.
Mike Basile, product director, Cadoo, said: “We have ambitious growth plans for Cadoo, which include opening an office in the UK later this year, and seeing the app reach one million users by 2020, not just in Ireland but in overseas markets, such as the US, the UK and Australia.
“The free Cadoo app gives schools, colleges and universities more control over their communications, whilst cutting both their costs and admin time spent managing these communications.
“Educational institutions have the option of sending media-rich messages to large numbers of students or students’ parents for free and Cadoo also gives them the ability to send and receive communications in one app.
“Recipients also benefit by getting immediate and important updates, as well as being able to respond directly and privately.”
Investor, Cillian McCarthy, CEO, Paradyn, added: “We’re very excited to invest in Cadoo, there is huge potential for the app, not just in Ireland but globally.
“The pilot programme has shown that the user-friendly platform saves schools and colleges both time and money managing phone messaging.”