Irish start-up GirlCrew has been chosen as one of the Irish winners of the Silicon Valley and EU Roadshow.

Nine start-ups from Dublin, Berlin, Milan and Madrid have been chosen for the programme, which is funded by the Welcome Project through the Startup Europe initiative and supported by the European Commission.

The second Irish participant is SwiftComply, which connects cities with food businesses for sustainable fat, oil, and grease recovery and reuse.

The two firms will visit partner European start-up ecosystems in each of the cities before embarking on a three-week trip to Silicon Valley.

Founded by Elva Carri, Áine Mulloy and Irish Times journalist Pamela Newenham, GirlCrew is an online and offline community aimed at helping women to make new friends and network in a social and professional capacity.

“GirlCrew has grown a lot in the last couple of months,” said Ms Mulloy. “It’s a key year going from early stages to a fully fledged start-up.”

Ms Mulloy said the Welcome programme would really help to open doors for the company, allowing them to pitch to and meet with potential investors and partners, and study the tech scene across Europe.

“The connections you make are invaluable,” she said.

The social network, which has a network of 35,000 members spanning 46 cities worldwide, has recently been named as one of Google’s latest Adopt A Start-up participants, and is readying its app for launch.

Previous Irish participants in the Welcome programme include Openback and Artomatix.

"This year we are delighted to yet again send some really diverse teams on this programme and GirlCrew and SwiftComply illustrate that start-ups can be disruptive and innovative at the same time and target massive growth markets," said Eoghan Stack, chief executive of the DCU Ryan Academy, the sole Irish partner organisation in the Welcome Project.

Isidro Laso, head of Startup Europe at the European Commission, said every day entrepreneurs dream about a more connected Europe where markets are easily penetrable and where an ecosystem of investors, accelerators and corporates give hands to make them grow beyond their region.

“We believe that Europe’s growth is going to be determined by savvy startups, and we want to support this movement.”