Entrepreneurs negotiate changing landscape to realise their potential

The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well with many companies producing quality products with the backing of Enterprise Ireland, finds John Daly

OVER the last year, Enterprise Ireland has supported the establishment of 80 high-potential start-up companies, involving over 150 entrepreneurs.

These innovative young companies will create more than 770 jobs over the next three years. Total sales over the same three-year period are expected to reach €528 million, with exports accounting for more than 80% of this figure.

Over the past decade, the scheme has supported more than 800 high-potential start-ups, which are responsible for employing more than 25,000 people directly and indirectly, and have combined sales of over €1.5 billion, 75% of which is exported.

Exports are at an all time high and recovery in international markets is fuelling increased demand for Irish products and services.

These new companies are widening their market reach, expanding into new international markets, and opening up new business.

“The environment is strong for export-led new business start ups, and the pipeline of ambitious technology start-ups including an increased number from overseas based entrepreneurs is stronger than ever,” says Greg Treston, head of high-potential start-up at Enterprise Ireland.

“These start-ups are perfectly timed to catch the up-turn in our key export markets while also benefiting from Ireland’s improved competitiveness.

“There are significant opportunities for new export-focused business start-ups, particularly in life sciences, bio-tech and medical technology, clean-tech, food, telecoms, internet services and other niche areas.”

Future Brite for online billing portals

Paper billing is being replaced by online portals.

Name: Brite Bill

Location: Dublin

Sector: Software

Commercial Director: Finbar Callaly

www.britebill.com

USING Brite Bill, service providers, banks and postal services can bring a new level of interactivity to their online billing portals.

It enables them to offer informative, functional and insightful services.

Direct billers such as utility companies can provide a suite of online analysis tools that incentivise customers to adopt electronic billing and payment, reducing costs while also offering the potential to grow revenues via their online channels. The company also supports the consolidation/ aggregation model for electronic bill presentation and payment, enabling consumer services organisations to offer consumers a single destination to access, manage and pay bills from multiple service providers. Through a global agreement with Accenture, Brite Bill are currently engaged in live trials with Royal Mail in Britain, mobile operator 3, Eircom and Bank of Ireland. Within a year, the company has doubled its employees.

“We are building a global company that is revolutionising the world of interactive billing. Brite Bill enables service providers to exploit their billing processes to cement long term profitable relationships with customers and dramatically change the way they engage with their consumers online.

“Accenture work with 17 of the top 20 postal agencies in the world and by virtue of their work they are involved in, the delivery of over half the world’s mail. This partnership brings together Brite Bill’s innovative technology with Accenture’s massive delivery scale and market reach.

“Posts are facing one of the most radical market transformations ever faced by a single industry with transactional mail volume declining at a steadily accelerating rate.”

Equine healthcare diagnostic product providing fast results

Name: Epona Biotech

Location: Sligo

Sector: Biotech

CEO: Heinrich Anholdepona

biotech.com

EPONA Biotech Ltd is developing a product for veterinarians who need rapid diagnostic results at the horse’s side. Currently, blood samples are collected and sent to a clinic or centralised laboratory for analysis.

Using proprietary lab-on-a-chip technology, Epona is developing the world’s first portable blood analyser that can carry out a complete blood count anywhere, anytime and instantly.

Epona was founded in 2008 to create breakthrough products with advanced technologies.

Optimising health and performance through its advanced technologies, it aims to make rapid and clear equine healthcare products.

Heinrich Anhold is a former junior international showjumping rider and is also a graduate from NUI where he completed a PhD in biochemistry.

“We have discovered a niche as there are very few diagnostics that are specifically developed for horses. This is a market worth €1bn annually, and we aim to deliver laboratory accuracy right at the stable. Up to now, analysis was expensive and outsourced, whereas our handheld reader can analyse a tiny sample of blood on a disposable cartridge in minutes, then store and compare the results so vets, trainers and breeders can have more insight into a horse’s health.

“It is a maintenance- free system. You put your sample into the cartridge and the blood does not leave the cartridge, it stays there and you throw it away again.

“It is designed to fit well with the mobility required in equine diagnostics. We are hoping to bring it to market in 2012.”

Face to face with the future of interviews

Name: Sonru

Location: Wexford

Sector: Online video technology

Director: Fergal O’Byrne

www.sonru.com

SONRU is an online video technology company headquartered in Ireland with offices in Britain and Singapore. The company’s automated online video interview solution replaces first round phone and on-site interviews.

Sonru has a global client and candidate reach and is expanding at a rapid rate. The company formally entered the British market in January and has representation in Singapore, Canada, the Middle East and North Africa.

The name Sonru stems from the Irish phrase “Bí le sonrú”, meaning to “stand out”. The company aim is to make its Automated Video Interview solution stand out as a system to reduce costs, time to hire, stress and wasted time and increase profit margins. Sonru was ranked 46th in the Innovate! 100 — the list of outstanding and fast-moving start-ups.

Director Fergal O’Byrne said: “We are extremely busy, mainly down to the fact that we are export focused. There have been variations of video usage in the recruitment process, but what sets us apart is the platform using automated online version leveraging the power of cloud computing. It is very, very scalable and very cost effective to both run the product and market it globally.

“We have looked to the East in terms of resourcing our hub in Singapore, but we have also looked West with partnerships in Canada and significant clients in the US.

“Ireland works very well as a test bed for our products, but the strategy was always to look globally for our development. We found the Enterprise Ireland extensive overseas support network to be extremely beneficial to us. Also, some of their high level management courses have radically altered how we view our business plan.”

Specialists in mobile marketing

Name: Digital Reach

Location: Dublin

Sector: Digital Advertising

Chief executive: Colm Grealy

www.drg.ie

DIGITAL Reach Group operates two business units. Digital Reach is a specialist in mobile marketing and publishing, developing and executing mobile strategy. It provides managed access to cloud-based mobile media buying platforms for leading brands and advertising agencies.

Adforce.ie is an outsourced sales and technology company in the media and telecoms sectors providing a single point of purchase, campaign delivery and reporting for adverts that run across multiple internet sites and mobile applications.

Clients include publishers, broadcasters, radio stations and mobile operators.

“Business is very strong, we are in the fast growing area of mobile advertising. Increasingly as we use iphones and smartphones that connect to the internet, business is transferring to the mobile.

“A key part of the business of the internet is advertising, so we are growing pretty dramatically as mobile advertising is growing in line with internet advertising and is becoming an increasing part of the advertising spend from companies.

“Despite the downturn in advertising, digital advertising continues to grow. Digital Reach helps companies and brands understand and take advantage of these exciting opportunities in the mobile publishing, advertising and marketing sectors,” he says.

New ways of reporting news

Name: Storyful

Location: Dublin

Sector: Digital Media

CEO: Mark Little

www.storyful.com

STORYFUL was established in December 2009 by the award-winning former RTÉ journalist. It is the first news agency designed for the social media age and operates as an online publishing platform for news stories which combines journalistic skills, curation technology and an online community to turn social media noise into streams of relevant news.

The business gathers the most valuable content from social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and delivers it to global news organisations though its StoryfulPro product. Storyful has developed partnerships with a number of global media brands.

“Real time stories challenge the old rules of news. They don’t fit neat categories, they refuse distinctions between professional and amateur. Language is tight, less is always more.

“We believe every story starts with a single voice,” says chief executive Mark Little.

“Storyful’s golden rule is there is always someone closer to the story. The timing of social media in the form of Facebook and Twitter maturing into an essential part of modern news has been the fast-gathering wave upon which Storyful has flourished.”

Loc8 carves a niche in sat nav market

Name: Loc8 Code

Location: Cork

Sector: Navigation software

CEO: Gary Delaney

www.gpsireland.ie

LOC8 Code technology helps to resolve the challenges associated with poor property addressing via a short character alpha-numeric code which defines geographic position to within six metres.

Loc8 Code’s technology was developed by GPS Ireland to allow road users in national and overseas markets such as the Middle East get better and more efficient use of their sat-navs.

The Loc8 Code team is made up of navigation and mapping experts, electronics and software engineers. Initially, Loc8 Code will be targeting companies in the logistics and navigation industries.

“The Loc8 Code technology is uniquely self-checking, is already supported on popular sat nav devices and was chosen by Garmin, the world’s largest manufacturer of navigation devices and software, in competition with other providers,” says chief executive Gary Delaney. “The value of a precise addressing system in Ireland to the logistics, web retail, tourism, utilities, emergency services and motoring sectors is in excess of €15 million per year.

“Loc8 Code can save up to 15% in fuel costs for the 100,000 multi-drop vehicles serving the Irish economy annually by ensuring that the destination is accurately and reliably known to the driver, without any need for a road by road search or multiple telephone calls and very often multiple efforts to deliver over multiple days.”

Going online to keep energy costs down

Name: DCS Energy Savings

Location: Kerry

Sector: Energy

Co-Founder: Donal Sugrue

www.dcsenergysavings.com

ESTABLISHED in 2009, the company identified an opportunity to develop a user-friendly energy management solution.

Through a web-based portal, DCS delivers an easily understood visualisation of all utility usage, using a wireless bi-directional sensor network to collect and display the recorded meter and environmental sensor data, thereby enabling control of energy consumption — electricity, gas, oil and water.

Other data for non-metered carbon emission sources like waste or transport can also be imported. Knowledge of energy consumption, together with control capability through the portal, allows for energy savings to be made without further capital investment.

Co-founder Donal Sugrue says the company’s future lies in Britain and beyond. “Certainly, the product has global applications, but we are slowly growing the business in a national and UK arena in advance of looking further afield.

“We are looking at selecting somebody in the US as a reseller of our product. The fact that Enterprise Ireland bought into the concept has helped us enormously in getting from drawing board to market, and the assistance in terms of development costs has been very important to the overall upward arc of DCS. Our mantra is to make energy savings simplified. People cannot manage their energy until they know where their energy is actually being used.”

Specialist R&D firm bringing real depth to 3D market

Name: RealView Innovations

Location: Roscommon

Sector: Optical technology

Executive director: Catherine Ansbro

www.realview.ie

REALVIEW Innovations is a specialist research and development company formed by a group of specialised optical engineers following their discovery of a revolutionary three-dimensional screen technology that is able to boost the perceived depth of all two dimensional screen images. This patented technology is now commonly referred to as depth enhancing technology.

Following the successful deployment of this technology in the medical and scientific world, RealView has expanded its market base by focusing on applications for the personal entertainment and video game markets.

The first of RealView’s products on the market using this technology is the V-Screen, an accessory for the popular Sony PSP gaming console, which was successfully launched last year.

“We are preparing for release a major new product for television and have just arranged a partnership in India — a continent where the growth in flat panel TV is 60% per annum.

“We found the support from Enterprise Ireland and its new product development team really outstanding. It has been hugely important in helping get RealView Innovations to its current point of development.

In the early years, much of RealView’s work was dedicated to the development of the core technology. At this stage, RealView’s focus will broaden to include other areas such as TV accessories, mobile phones, and large screens for flight simulation and digital signage.”

Focused on needs of GPs

Name: Socrates Healthcare

Location: Sligo

Sector: Healthcare software

Director: Emmet Gilhooley

www.socrates.ie

SOCRATES Healthcare develops and sells management software for healthcare professionals. In particular, the company is focused on GP practices of up to 10 staff. The flagship product, Socrates GP, enables a complete transition from paper charts to electronic health records and has been extended to 350 practices.

The company has begun exporting products and services to the US market, where significant growth is predicted.

“Business is increasing with us by the week, by the month, and we are taking on new staff on a regular basis. Our primary business market with GPs is now being bolstered with our moves into the consultant market with our Socrates sister product.

“We are gaining traction in South Africa and also in the US,” he says.

Rapid access to video surveillance

VIDEO evidence can be critical in police work, but gathering and reviewing it requires enormous human effort. Kinesence helps investigators to retrieve, search and prepare video evidence quickly and reliably to speed investigations, reduce effort, and assure evidential integrity. The company creates easy-to-use software with sophisticated video search and analysis capability that meets the needs of investigators. The software is based on five years of advanced research and testing and deployment with police forces.

Kinesence technology is used by police forces and security agencies including technical support units, major investigation units, counter terrorism units, serious crimes units, and overt and covert surveillance teams. It has been successfully sold to Irish and British police forces and is currently focusing on international expansion. Kinesense aims to become the de facto standard for video viewing and analysis for law enforcement agencies.

“The company has developed a number of solutions that rapidly search video and find the events that matter. Police are tasked with trawling through vast amounts of video during investigations. The time and effort required to, view, analyse and report on video footage is enormous. Utilising time saving technology is paramount when police budgets are tight and resources limited. ‘Doing more with less’ is the mantra of 2011. An investigator can use our software to search for people, vehicles or objects in a particular area of the scene in a video. Matches against the filter are shown on a video timeline, and the investigator can jump quickly to scenes of interest. The resulting time savings are typically 95% of the traditional time spent viewing video during an investigation.

One of our strengths is our ability to engage proactively with customers and take on board their requirements so that we introduce products that are targeted to the needs of our clients. We are well aware of the budget challenge facing police and that is why we have introduced products that address specific tasks and enabling police to focus on frontline work.”