CORK native Duhallow man Michael O’Flynn, founder of HorsePay.ie, is a University of Limerick graduate, and an ‘Irish Best Young Entrepreneur’ award winner. O’Flynn (23) is leading the charge to digitise the equine industry, a global market worth €278 billion per annum.

HorsePay.ie is the world’s first online equine trading payment protection system. It is designed to allow secure equine trading between horse-buyers.

O’Flynn said: “The equine world is in the dark ages when it comes to safe and secure trading of equines, particularly the peer to peer segment which makes up 74% of all transactions.”

HorsePay.ie is simple to use, from a phone, laptop or smart device. Either a buyer or seller can initiate a sales transaction. Michael explained for example how a seller can create an online sales contract via their phone, and send it to a buyer. Using a debit or credit card, the buyer can then pay a deposit on the spot, or pay in full. Both parties have a contract of sale, and benefit from being able to do a deal electronically without the need for cash.

HorsePay.ie also provides an escrow service of up to seven days, where the parties can negotiate and agree on if they wish. “HorsePay.ie hold the funds until the terms and conditions agreed are satisfied. The escrow can be used if one is buying a horse unseen, importing or exporting from the UK to Ireland or vice versa, and can be used as a warranty for sellers to achieve higher prices,” said Michael.

Funding campaign

With the help of Local Enterprise Office Mallow, Co Cork, O’Flynn launched HorsePay.ie in late 2019 on the Irish market, as a listing site with an inbuilt payment protection system. In September this year, HorsePay.ie launched a stand-alone payments feature: ‘Instant Sale’ which allows transactions to take place anywhere between buyers and sellers.

O’Flynn is now looking to expand HorsePay.ie into the UK market and to do this he has partnered with Spark Crowdfunding to raise €100,000. The campaign is live on www.sparkcrowdfunding.com with over 60% funded currently, and is taking investments from €100 upwards until next Thursday, November 19th.