Each company will receive 50,000 euro to “explore the market fit for their services and move swiftly to market launch.”
Over the past 10 months, Enterprise Ireland has launched four such Competitive Start Funds for young innovative start ups across various sectors.
Congratulating the 15 companies that qualified for this round of funding, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD said:
“If we are to get out of this crisis, we must work hard to create an indigenous engine of growth.” The Minister continued by saying that while multinational investment in Ireland is and will remain crucial, it is “vital that we find ways of enabling our indigenous firms to perform better and take full advantage of export opportunities.”
The Minister pointed out that our efforts should not only be on attracting the next Google or Microsoft to Ireland, but should be aimed at creating the next Google or Microsoft here in Ireland.
The EI Competitive Start Up Fund is one of the efforts that the government is investing in to help realise this goal.
Commenting on the announcement, Tom Cusack, Enterprise Ireland Manager for High Potential Start Ups said: “We see this fund as a strategic investment in these young companies. It gives a vital
injection of funding and support to these promoters when they most need it.”
Mr Alan Hobbs, Head of Corporate Communications at Enterprise Ireland, said that as well as the financial assistance, the 15 companies will also have access to a panel of mentors which is made up of people from the ICT sector that have already been involved in startups.
EI often works closely with overseas venture capitalists and, according to Mr Hobbs, there is a “strong level of interest in Ireland,” which Mr Hobbs believes is a “strong indication of the quality of the companies that we have in Ireland.” Another indicator of the potential in Ireland, according to Mr Hobbs, is the number of Irish-owned companies that have been acquired by Multinationals in recent years.
“That is something that has not happened up until relatively recently … it is a great endorsement of the companies and the skills and the products that they have developed,” he said.
One of the high potential startups receiving funding is R&D Slua Limited, who are the force behind Supply.ie. Company founder, Mr Mike McGrath, said that they have used a large proportion of their funding to help revamp their web-presence, which is a integral part of the business.
“It was great to get the funding, it was much needed, we couldn’t have made such changes [to the website] without it,” said Mr McGrath. Being an online business, Mr McGrath says that a lot of time, money and effort is needed to promote the business.
Supply.ie is an online quotation system that helps small businesses to get supplies for the best price possible, by posting what they require on the site and sending the information to local suppliers, who respond with corresponding quotations. Mr McGrath believes that this saves small companies who don’t have a designated purchasing person the hassle and effort of hunting down the best price.
The team at Supply.ie believe that once the system is operational in Ireland it can be applied to other countries. “That’s why I suppose EI are involved, they see the potential as well, they are keen to export everything really, as much as possible.”
Another company that will receive funding is Open Emotion Studios Ltd, a gaming company from Limerick. CEO Paddy Murphy says that his company started in 2009 as a sole trader, then a partnership and progressed to a limited company. They started off developing flash games, and in July 2010 they got approval to become Sony PlayStation developers. “Our fourth game is being released next month for the PS3,” said Mr Murphy. When the team went to GDC Europe (a games development conference), they met foreign publishers for whom they will be developing a game until 2013. Seven of the team are based in Limerick, two in Dublin and one in London. Paddy said that one of the reasons he started the company with colleagues was that none of them had a lot of experience in the games industry, but it was an area they were interested in.
“Whenever we went onto websites looking for jobs they were looking for three plus years of experience; if you can’t get a job, how can you get the experience? How are we going to do this, so we said set up the company and we did.”
Besides the funding, Paddy Murphy said that one of the main reasons he wanted to get involved with the fund was because he wanted to get his foot in the door of EI. “I have heard only good things about them helping you once you are an EI client.”
Under the terms of the Competitive Start Fund, startups will receive an equity investment of up to 50,000 euro for a 10 per cent ordinary equity stake. In addition to funding, each startup will be provided with an experienced business mentor to support them. The application process has been designed and improved to be fast and efficient to allow the new startups to concentrate on validating their business concept and getting to market entry stage as quickly as possible.
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