Irish Start-up Coining it in Dubai
Dublin based start-up Coindrum has solved the coin conundrum for holiday makers and is now offering its solution in the world biggest international airport - Dubai. The company offers an alternative to filling coin jars with foreign currency when returning home from international travel. The solution came to founder Lukas Decker when dropping coins into a motorway toll machine – airport units that turn peoples unwanted coins into vouchers for duty free. The passenger service also incentivises shopping, which is why duty free chains are sweetening the deal by offering 10% additional shopping credit on all deposited coins. A win-win solution for customers and shops the young business headquartered in Donnybrook has rapidly grown from its start in Dublin Airport to its tenth launch in Dubai, where the service will be offered to over 90 million passengers this year.
The Irish 50 year Dubai Duty Free veteran Colm McLoughlin, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO, lead the business from 20 million USD sales in the first year of its operations in 1983 to 1.93 billion USD last year. He comments: “The Coindrum service is a welcome addition to Dubai and fits in with our belief in innovative solutions to meet the customer’s needs. It’s great to see another Irish success story in our industry”.
Coindrum celebrated its latest feat in shaking up the industry, Dubai being the seventh country and tenth airport. Founder Lukas Decker comments: ”The addition of Dubai to our network is a great achievement for us. It just confirms that even in the world’s greatest airports there is always room for something new.”
Some of Irelands leading travel entrepreneurs share the enthusiasm as Coindrum recently closed a 2m Euro funding round with participation from aviation tycoon Declan Ryan, Bobby Healy of CarTrawler and Hostelworld founder Tom Kennedy.