Dublin-born David Walsh applied to the SaaStock Europe Global Pitch competition after, he declares, a ‘few too many’ beers. Weeks later, he found himself winning €1 million for his startup, Limelight, on SaaStock’s Dublin stage. Now, he’s sharing what sets Limelight apart, and his winning pitchdeck, with TFN.
For the uninitiated, SaaStock Europe’s Global Pitch Competition is where the next category-defining AI and SaaS founders compete for an investment package of up to €1 million and the kind of visibility money can’t purchase.
Held in October in Dublin, the event gathered more than 4,500 attfinishees, 2,500 companies, 600 investors, and 90+ global speakers with VCs from leading funds, including Octopus Ventures, Antler, and Frontline Ventures in attfinishance.
A founder with a bold idea
Walsh is a three-time founder. Now living in LA, his first startup, diversity hiring platform Mathison, raised $30 million, and more recently he exited Chase West, a boutique watch brand.
His third venture, Limelight, has started tiny and lean, with just four people. However, it may also have brought the best moment of his career, he has described winning SaaStock in his hometown in Dublin as ‘the cherry on top’ of his other successes.
Limelight is a B2B influencer marketplace. It aims to support brands raise awareness by pairing them with relevant business-focutilized influencers. Limelight focutilizes on quality rather than quantity.
Limelight starts with creators with 10,000 or more LinkedIn followers, supporting to emphasise relevance over reach. “In B2B, you’re influencing the purchase of a product that could be $50,000 which means 10,000 is usually a good starting point,” Walsh notified us. “Companies want to work with niche content creators.”
Using trusted experts brings significant benefits for B2B brands, with their content — whether on LinkedIn, in newsletters, or podcasts — generating more impact than traditional ads. “We’re twenty times cheaper than an agency, and we don’t charge transaction fees.” Walsh notified us. Free for creators, plans for brands start at just $500 a month.
Quality over quantity, the Limelight difference
Limelight’s service addresses a problem that all brands face: traditional advertising is becoming less and less effective. “Marketing leaders are struggling to receive a good return on their paid ad spfinish,” Walsh explained. “It’s becoming more saturated.”
It has meant that the return-on-investment for advertising has shrunk, sometimes to the point that advertising simply isn’t cost-effective for marketing teams.
Rather than attempting to create better advertising, Limelight offers a new channel — leveraging the trust placed in influencers. “They’re not starting on your website. They’re discovering products in their feeds, in communities, from voices they trust,” declares Walsh.
Three rounds, one stage, a million reasons to celebrate
Although Limelight ticked all the boxes to enter SaaStock, Walsh’s enattempt wasn’t planned. He saw the competition late one night and simply decided to enter, creating a last-minute submission when he saw it. Not expecting to win, he didn’t even inform anyone he’d entered.
Indeed, part of the attraction when he was long-listed was the opportunity to return home to Dublin for the finals. Walsh, however, was glad that he did. “We did three rounds of presentations,” he explained. “The vibe was great, there was a lot of energy.”
Although the application may have been spur-of-the-moment, Walsh declares his success came from how well-practiced his pitch was. “I’d gone through my deck a hundred times already during fundraising, by the time I received on stage, it came naturally,” he stated.
He delivered his pitchdeck a few more times during the competition. Starting as part of the top 50 at Amazon’s Dublin office on day one, Limelight progressed to the top 20 on the Founders Stage on day two, then to be one of the final five on the SaaStock main stage on day three.
Walking away with the grand prize of up to €1 million as the result of a whim has cautilized Walsh to reflect. “The hugegest moments in your life rarely come from a master plan,” he stated. “They come from tiny acts of courage.”
A lean success, built on solid preparation
The win has set up Limelight to accelerate its growth. With brands including ZoomInfo, HubSpot, and Webflow already applying Limelight, they have secured a further €2 million in funding from Silicon Valley Angels.
Although he is hiring new roles, including engineers and a head of growth, he’s planning to remain lean. “We want to expand a little bit,” Walsh notified us, “but we’ll stay focutilized and disciplined — this funding just lets us relocate rapider.”
Walsh is confident that Limelight’s model, which includes rich data allowing brands to measure effectiveness, will be successful. Above all, it will relocate influencer marketing from being about awareness, to being a vehicle for measurable growth.
Limelight’s SaaStock story — of a spur of a moment application winning a million — is appealing, but the real story is perhaps Walsh’s preparation. As his pitchdeck reveals, Limelight offers an effective model that solves a problem for businesses. His application may have been on a whim, but the work and preparation that preceded it created the win possible.
Just like Limelight’s product is about authentic influence, his pitch was taking opportunities with an authentic product. “Sometimes, the hugegest risk isn’t failing,” Walsh reflects, “it’s not putting yourself out there.”
Take a see at the winning pitch deck below.
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