Fexco continues its innovation at the edge of Europe

The thriving RDI Hub near Killorglin, Co Kerry, has just celebrated its third anniversary

At the RDI Hub for its three-year anniversary event are chief executive Liam Cronin, economist David McWilliams and Karl Aherne, chief operating officer, Fexco. Picture: Don MacMonagle

Three years after opening its virtual and physical doors, the RDI Hub near Killorglin, the country’s only public-private partnership hub supporting innovation for start-ups and SMEs, is to double its “desk” space.

The not-for-profit PPP with Fexco, Kerry County Council and Munster Technological University launched in February 2020. Six weeks later, the country was in pandemic mode.

“This was a massive challenge for us,” chief executive Liam Cronin said on Tuesday during an event which drew 200 people to the state-of-the-art building.

But covid has proved a blessing as well as a challenge, Cronin said. The online webinar programme and hybrid way of working has continued and thrived.

Covid changed the way meetings are held. We are no longer limited to physical location. We are getting more people involved as well as more people wanting to move to a rural location.” 

Fexco has been innovating from the edge of Europe for 40 years, Cronin said.

Meetings and conferences at the hub now regularly attract up to 200, both in person and remote.

Eight full-time employees work in supporting the 50 companies and there are thousands of training programmes hosted each year.

This includes a programme for second-level girls schools from disadvantaged areas to encourage entrepreneurial spirit. This reaching out and educational links is where the advantage of being a public-private entity, Mr Cronin said.

A native of Limerick, now based in Kildare, Liam Cronin’s commitment to rural Ireland is strong: “I am a big fan of rural development. I want rural towns to develop.” 

Some €12m has been raised by companies at the hub and they are generating €6.5m a year now.

In the last 12 months alone, 16 new companies have been “onboarded”. The RDI Hub is now home to global companies including Liebherr, Glencar Construction, Helgen Technologies and Taxamo, a Vertex company.

With most of the 80 desks occupied now, The RDI Hub is adding a further 72.

“We want to bring in companies to Kerry that wouldn’t have been here before — the Mexican, the Japanese,” he said pointing to current clients, which include a Mexican robotics company.

As well as increased desks, 2023 will also see investment in a new digital media lab. The hub was recently selected as a member of the European startup Village Forum But there are challenges: fundraising is an issue for companies and housing for those wanting to move to Kerry is one of the biggest.

Surprisingly, a big challenge post-pandemic is staff retention — companies from Dublin and abroad now are “poaching” people from Kerry and telling them you don’t have to move house,” Cronin said.

During the event to mark the hub's anniversary, participants including economist and writer David McWilliams spoke of the new way of working accelerated by the pandemic, AI and how Ireland’s biggest competitors were not the old countries like the UK and France but countries like Israel, Denmark and Finland.