Luke Rynne Cullen

About

Driving payments at Curve Royalty Systems, leading the development & launch of an embedded finance product from 0 -> 1 now supporting robust KYB onboarding, multi-currency balances, validation of payee details & millions in cross-border payouts to rights holders globally. Previously, helped grow Scale Ireland into a leading advocacy group for Irish startups. Secured over €1M in credits from partners like AWS, Google Cloud, and Stripe, while scaling a founder/investor community to 1,200+ members and built a sustainable membership model. Also worked on a white-labeled e-commerce product at Mastercard, partnering with banks across EMEA & APAC to support merchant store creation, e-invoicing, inventory management & hosted checkouts. Former Founder of Precital (T/A Applaud & TuneRelease), building tools for hundreds of musicians to secure live bookings, distribute releases & pitch their music. Featured in Ireland's 100 Hot Startups and 30 Under 30 lists, winning pitch competitions like Blackstone LaunchPad Sprints and TES Dragons' Den, and participating in accelerators including Google Adopt a Startup, Trinity's LaunchBox, Founders Boost, and Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers Entrepreneur Development programmes. A musician at heart, I formerly managed Trinity Orchestra and once played with Hozier in tribute to the late great David Bowie. Also co-founded DataKit, a hackathon project turned data studio, reaching 500+ users across 25+ countries.

Experience

• Co-Founder DataKit (Hackathon Project) · DataKit05-01-2025 – 11-01-2025

  Built a local-first privacy-centric data studio powered by DuckDB, combining SQL notebooks and shareable chart components; reached 500+ active users across 25+ countries through organic adoption and early community engagement.

• Product Manager - Payments · Curve Royalty Systems01-01-2024 –

  Leading the development and launch of an embedded finance product (0→1) with robust KYB onboarding, multi-currency balances, payee detail validation, and scalable cross-border payouts to rights holders.

• Product Manager · Downtown Music03-01-2023 –

  Product leadership for rights and payments initiatives across Downtown Music Holdings; ongoing role driving roadmap and cross-functional delivery.

• Product - Royalty Accounting · FUGA03-01-2023 – 01-01-2025

  Led royalty accounting product efforts within FUGA to streamline payments, reporting and royalty calculations for rights holders.

• Founder · Develoy04-01-2019 –

  A personal holding company for consulting work and incubating new product ideas; serving clients including DataKit, Scale Ireland, Sustainable Finance Ireland, Pixel Strategic Consulting, Sherwin O'Riordan Solicitors, ValueVerse, Trigr, Faraway Martin & others.

• Marketing & Technology Lead · Scale Ireland08-01-2020 – 06-01-2024

  Led marketing and technology initiatives; built partnerships and the founder/investor community to drive growth and advocacy.

• Product Development Manager - Mastercard Payment Gateway Services · Mastercard05-01-2022 – 03-01-2023

  Shipped PSD2-compliant 3DS 2.0, hosted checkout, and e-invoicing across EMEA/APAC; collaborated with banks across regions to enable merchant onboarding and payments features.

• Founder (TuneRelease - New Music Marketing Platform) · Precital01-01-2020 – 04-01-2022

  Co-founded a marketing platform for musicians to promote releases and pitch for opportunities.

• Founder (Applaud - Live Music Bookings Platform) · Precital04-01-2019 – 07-01-2020

  Built tools to help musicians secure live bookings and grow venues’ schedules.

• Founder TuneRelease (Precital) · Precital01-01-2020 – 04-01-2022

  Developed TuneRelease as part of the Precital portfolio; focused on artist marketing and bookings integration.

Education

• Saïd Business School, University of OxfordFintech Programme
• Product SchoolMicro-Certifications
• Technological University DublinNew Frontiers Entrepreneur Development Programme with Enterprise Ireland
• Portal - Trinity Innovation and EnterpriseStudent Accelerator Programme Participant
• Trinity College DublinBachelor of Arts - BA, with honours in English Literature & History
• Technological University DublinConservatory of Music and Drama, Music Theory and Performance in Violin & Viola
• Royal Academy of MusicMusic Theory & Performance in Piano

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