€12m investment set to create almost 350 jobs

A €12m investment in the Irish smart economy is aiming to create 343 jobs within the next three years.

Halo Business Angel Network, an umbrella group for InterTrade Ireland and Enterprise Ireland, raised the cash for 29 Irish tech start-ups last year.

As a result, 143 new jobs are coming on stream this year, with some of those positions already filled in the first quarter.

HBAN national director Michael Culligan said that the remaining 200 jobs will be created at a variety of companies by the end of 2014.

"There's a lot of talk about the smart economy of course," he said.

"The companies are certainly technology-centric, a large amount of them are, but in fact they are across a range of sectors, including technology, medical devices, biotechnology, and maybe software, specifically in the internet area, also."