Web 2 Ireland

The Propel Programme is run by Enterprise Ireland and is designed to provide entrepreneurs with the necessary business skills to establish a successful global business. (Note that URL is not loading for me at the moment)

Propel will run for one year and is open to those currently located, or planning to locate, in one of the six border counties of Cavan, Donegal, Leitrim, Louth, Monaghan or Sligo.

They will provide:

• Financial support of up to €30,000 (was €38k until recent cutbacks)
• Business start-up training
• Specialised expertise and mentoring
• Access to potential investors
• Access to local and global contacts and networks
• Hot desk facilities

I assume Propel was modelled on the huge successes of Genesis, Hothouse, M50, EAC etc rather than being created from scratch by consultants. If you are in Munster, applications for Genesis are still being accepted.

Final date for receipt of applications for Propel is 24 April 2009. Email startup@propelprogramme.ie or call (01) 605 9180

Enterprise Ireland is doing an information evening on starting a tech business in Letterkenny on 25th March.

It looks like a very useful session with speakers on:

• Business Planning Process
• EI supports to High Potential Start ups
• Paul McNulty on starting his own Technology Business

If you wish to attend, please contact marian.roberts@enterprise-ireland.com

Mary Boyle in Enterprise Ireland in Sligo has contacted us to let everyone know that a very experienced person from the Irish tech sector is looking to mentor and potentially invest in high potential startups.

If this is of interest to you, then put together a one-page overview of your biz and send it to Mary DOT Boyle AT enterprise-ireland DOT com along with all your contact details.

UPDATE: The person in question is going through all the proposals he has been sent. He is delighted with the level of interest & the potential in the companies. He doesn't want any more submssions until he evaluates the ones he has.  He will get back directly to companies he is interested in talking to.

LouderVoice is currently on the Genesis Enterprise Programme in the Rubicon Centre in CIT. I can’t recommend it highly enough. These schemes give people the opportunity to start a business with a support infrastructure around them. The advice and training alone are worth their weight in gold.

Brian O’Malley from EI in Sligo contacted us to tell us about the West and Midlands version of this programme:

An Open Evening will take place in the Innovation in Business Centre(IiBC) at GMIT Castlebar on Wednesday 21st Jan from 5pm 8pm outlining the 2009 Midlands & West Enterprise Programme (MWEP), commencing in March 2009, for people interested in starting their own business.

The one-year programme is a collaboration between GMIT and Athlone IT, and provides entrepreneurs with business skills, networks, facilities and supports necessary to navigate the business start-up process. It is delivered in GMIT's campuses in Galway and Mayo, and in Athlone IT.

Applications are now being accepted.

Anyone interested in signing up for the course should ideally have a number of years industry experience and have the enthusiasm and drive necessary to develop and grow a successful business. The MWEP may also be of interest to expatriates who are hoping to return home to set up their own business in the West of Ireland. Participants may apply to Enterprise Ireland for CORD funding, which could provide up to 50 per cent of previous year's gross salary.

The MWEP provides participants with business acumen, office desk space, mentoring, networking, facilities, and supports necessary to help them in establishing and running their own businesses. Participants should have a business idea with growth and export potential.

For further details, please contact Maria Staunton who is the business incubation manager at GMIT Castlebar on 094-9043198 or maria.staunton@gmit.ie

David McWilliams did an uncharacteristically bad fan-boy analysis on his blog recently of the latest attempt by the government to bootstrap home-grown high potential businesses. His post lacks any real substance and drowns in Minister-style knowledge economy buzzword bingo.

photo credit: John Griffiths

It kicked off a very long comment thread, most of which is unreadable, but which contains some real gems. The best of the lot is by Johnny Dunne who has a deep knowledge of the investment environment in Ireland.

Johnny does a brilliant analysis of how wrong-headed the €500m approach is in the short term, whilst accepting that long term it could provide benefit. It’s just a pity that those who are making these fundamental decisions are taking their advice from the foxes minding the hen-house who have already killed all the chickens.

I’m quoting it here with Johnny’s permission:

The €500 Innovation Fund is a great 'medium to long term' idea to help fund the development of businesses based in Ireland selling valuable good and services to international customers.

Our problems are a lot more urgent – we face a serious fall off in economic activity again in 2009. For example, Dell alone pulling out of Ireland with €10 bn+ / 10% of GDP gone in one go !

David, if the government can invest NPRF of €1.5 billion in 'cash' within 'one month' in a bank with 'poor' assets and without a CEO and therefore you would have to assume NO business plan. I have never heard of a VC or a bank investing in a company without a Chairman, CEO and agreed plan !

Why not focus the 'special finance unit' in Anglo (and AIB,BOI) to invest say €500 million in growth companies without taking security as the government is not doing so! This unit which exist already invest in many 'larger' growth oriented companies some of them would be Enterprise Ireland clients. For example, the main criteria used for lending in Anglo are people, cashflows and asset quality. The government have guaranteed the liabilities and injected cash so the banks should lend to 'good' people with a 'credible' and (dare I say it) innovative business plans without recourse to personal guarantees and propert / assets backed security.

There needs to be urgent action with a 'fund' launched in January with say €500 million to invest in 2009 – why not? Anglo increased lending by €9 billion in 2008! A medium term plan to invest €500 million over many years is not enough. This money may not 'start' investing for at least another 12 to 18 months, even then if it is in the hands of US VCs it may provide little employment in Ireland – assume investee companies will need qualifying Irish operations ? If the local VCs like Delta, Atlantic bridge and NCB can't find opportunities with their strict 'VC' criteria, then the international VCs will find it harder unless we open the 'flood gates' to fund earlier stage / developing companies.

There is a requirement (and suggestion) for many small funds say of €10 million each investing less than €1 million in a number of firms in order to open the 'pipe' of funded start-ups which can access further development capital at a later stage. Enterprise Ireland's policy with the latest round of €175 million of VC funds which 2 years after it's announcement has only allocated to 5 of the possible 8 funds. There is a 'believe' within Enterprise Ireland that small funds don't work as they don't have sufficient fund to follow their money. There has been calls for proposals from VCs, one in 2006 and another this year for the same money as the selected VCs couldn't seem to raise matching funds ? While over 20 funds applied on each occasion, only 8 were selected as 5 of these could only raise sufficient funds of at least €30 million inclusing state money. EI says this initial funding has leveraged €500 million for investment but already some of the more active funds like Delta and Atlantic Bridge have made multiple investments in non Irish companies. The reason ? based on their 'investment' criteria not sufficient opportunities in Ireland ?

So why are the Government allocating Irish 'pension' funds to US VC funds on a 50:50 basis now, when it could have done this many years ago when it was suggested before. Instead the 'mandarins' in the NPRF and 'beancounters' in the Dept of Finance felt it was better to invest in international equities which we know where they've gone – south! US 'Tier 1? VC funds are well able to raise their own funds without state support 9this should apply where the market won't go – remember there was 20 unsuccessful applicatns locally for the previous EI VC funding rounds). Why not just use the 'preferential' tax to ensure they invest through and in Ireland not invest directly when they can access other sources of finance and need to be free to invest on an international basis. Local fund and banks can invest !

There is €400 billion of loans outstanding but AIB have contributed €15 with Enterprise Ireland to a €30 million seed fund and BOI have invested about €20 million in a €70 million fund which EI would have invested a similar amount. Recently Ulster invested a smaller amount with EI in the NCB fund. We are investing over € 5 billion within 3 months in 3 banks with 'no security' and a relatively small return up to 10% (VCs look for 30% and use preference shares all the time but ensure they can convert to control the business if management don't execute on the business plan). Why not pass the same terms through to ANY business certified by Enterprise Ireland or the IDA with a 'qualifying' export oriented operation with the potential to generate more jobs and exports in the short term generating tax revenues.

The 'mind change' needs to be within the Irish financial services sector to fund this 'Smart Economy' of the future.

Or should we just let Science Foundation Ireland spend €7 billion on education and training in the years ahead with no medium term opportunity of generating sales !

There must be independent advisers with experience of investing or raising VC and banking funds better placed to advise the Minister rather than 'City folk' from Merrill Lynch generating massive fees to 'give away' tax payers and pension funds money in return for no equity in the 2 major banks AIB and BOI which are obviously undervalued, as they don't seem to understand where the irish economy is and what it needs to survive over the next decade ???

Since I can’t find a web-page with this information on it anywhere, I thought it would be useful to publish a newsletter that EI in Palo Alto sent to a ton of people this week to coincide with the Web 2.0 Summit. It does a good job of highlighting some of the activity over here.

UPDATE: This info now on the Enterprise Ireland Silicon Valley blog. I’ll move them from Blogger to WordPress for free if they want

  This week, the world´s web glitterati will converge on San Francisco for the Web 2.0 2008 Summit. Al Gore, Lance Armstrong and other prominent speakers will join internet news makers to examine how the web, its technologies, values and culture, might be tapped to address the world’s most pressing limits and opportunities.  

As a sponsor, Enterprise Ireland will represent the entrepreneurs behind Ireland´s web 2.0 ingenuity and highlight their expanding stake in the global internet economy.

HERE´S JUST A SNAPSHOT OF IRELAND´S WEB 2.0 NEWSMAKERS

PollDaddy was snapped up by Automattic (company behind WordPress) last month. PollDaddy provides polling and survey widgets for blogs, websites and social networks.

Contrast just launched Qwitter an application that alerts Twitter users when contacts “un-follow” them. With 16,000+ sign-ups in less than 2 weeks, the service is adding a new dynamic to Twitter-based relationships. 

dotMobi launched Version 2.0 of DeviceAtlas, the world´s most popular mobile device database. dotMobi is the company behind the .mobi internet domain designed to help consumers find mobile-friendly content.

Muzu TV signed agreements with Sony BMG, Ministry Of Sound, Skint Loaded (Fat Boy Slim’s label), Defected, and hundreds of other indies. Muzu TV is a new music TV website and distribution platform that enables bands and record labels to broadcast their music video on the web and get paid wherever it goes through a share in ad revenue. 

Nooked delivers shopping deals direct to consumers’ desktop, Myspace, Facebook, blog, start page, and mobile phones through widget-based technology.

Dial2Do is a phone-service for drivers. It lets you get things done safely and conveniently by just using your voice. You can send text messages, send and listen to email, create reminders, update your Twitter stream and use a range of other services by just calling a number and saying what you want to do. A winner at the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs Launch:2008 event, Dial2Do was voted as the company most likely to succeed in the Media and Mobility category. 

LouderVoice just made it easier for businesses to turn customer feedback and reviews into revenue-generating word-of-mouth campaigns. The company´s “white label” reviews system can be added to any website, providing a quick and easy way for visitors to review and comment.

PutPlace gathers all your valuable digital stuff [photos, documents, email, music, videos] from all your PCs and laptops. It backs up everything, securely stores it, and organizes it all so you can find or share your files from anywhere. Service features include: Simple, reliable automatic online backup that runs in the background; easy back up of files from multiple computers to the same account; secure access to your files from anywhere; automatically allows you to share the files you choose on services like Flickr; versions all stored files, ensuring that you never lose an old version of a file. 

Finetuna makes it easy to share notes on images, photos and other graphics files. Since its launch just 4 months ago, Finetuna has already surpassed the 50,000 user mark. 

Abaltat’s music creation tools make it possible for anyone to be a composer – creating original, perfectly synched, royalty-free music to match their video. A must for the growing number of creators of video-based content, from TV and film to online video advertising. Behind Abaltat is a group of experienced TV producers, editors, musicologists and the most imaginative programmers in Ireland. The result: a unique software product that has earned the company a spot on the shortlist of the Irish Software Association’s Technical Innovation Award and New Company of the Year Award. 

RevaHealth is cutting healthcare costs for budget-conscious consumers by connecting them with dentists and cosmetic clinics in countries where they can realize savings of more than 50%. Every week, more than 1000 people take advantage of RevaHealth´s comprehensive search services. 

Toddle makes it easy to create pretty HTML newsletters, using an interactive, easy-to-use web app. The product emerged from Beta to rave reviews and is seeing fast adoption by customers in Ireland and the US.

IGOpeople is gearing up to launch its beta service in December. The company provides a network for individuals and small businesses to easily communicate and share information. The service is drawing interest especially from business owners who can now reach highly targeted audiences more efficiently than through traditional advertising and telephone support. 

Hosting365 is a managed services and data centre facility provider and Ireland´s only commercial cloud computing provider. Ranked as one of Ireland’s fastest growing technology companies for the past 2 years, the company recently reported sales for its cloud computing services of €2.5 million for the first six months of the year.

Sxoop Technologie is an imaging software company which specializes in web-based photo solutions.  They recently picked up the ‘Most Innovative Website’ award at the inaugural Irish Web Awards for their web-based photo-editing website http://pixenate.com. Sxoop Technologies licenses their photo-software to social networking and photo-merchandising services. 

Web Reservations International (WRI) is a leading provider of online lodging reservations through its own network of highly trafficked sites (Hostelworld.com, boo.com, Trav.com and Hostels.com) along with 3,000+ affiliate partners. Through its flagship Hostelworld.com, WRI has become the leading online reservations provider to the budget travel sector, while boo.com combines travel search, reviews and social networking in a web 2.0 platform.

  IRELAND: DRAWING THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST  

With a reputation for nurturing internet entrepreneurs, Ireland has long drawn companies like Yahoo, Google and many others who selected the country as a location for their international presence. Last month, Facebook followed suit by establishing its international HQ in Dublin. 
Read more here 

WEB 2.0 WHAT´S NEXT?

To answer that million-dollar question, EI will join forces with the San Francisco Irish Network to host executives from Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Cuil and Skydeck for a spirited panel discussion that coincides with the web 2.0 Summit. Tom Foremski ofsiliconvalleywatcher.com will moderate. Event details are here 

Enterprise Ireland has finally done the move and consolidated all their Dublin offices into The Plaza at East Point Business Park. If you don’t know where that is, just head towards Howth.

I’ve heard nothing but good things about the EnterpriseStart programme in Cork. It was a real lifeline to many Motorola employees last year. The idea is to give basic business skills to those looking to set up their own companies.

Mary Boyle let us know that they run the same scheme in Sligo and the next one is coming up. If you are even considering making the leap then it’s worth popping down to hear what it’s all about.

A free information evening will take place in The Glasshouse Hotel, Sligo on 23rd September. Hear from experts on the supports available to entrepreneurs and from companies who have already set up. Liam Birkett will be the guest speaker on the night. Liam's career began in office management in the grocery trade and extended into sales and marketing. He was involved in the launch of Mace and VG group in Ireland. His experience extended into wholesale, retail, cash & carry, and consultancy on a national and international basis before moving to O'Kennedy Brindley Advertising (later to become Saatchi & Saatchi). With colleagues from the advertising agency, he founded Bernardini, Birkett & Gardner Ltd, a design & marketing consultancy which, for more than 20 years was responsible for corporate identities and many marketing initiatives for Stokes, Kennedy Crowley, Waterford Foods, Monaghan Co-op, Smurfit Group, The K Club, The new GAA branding as well as graphic and packaging projects for a long list of high profile clients.

The evening will kick off at 6pm. For more information please contact Mary Boyle on 071 9159700 or mary.boyle@enterprise-ireland.com

UPDATE: The programme is happening in Cork too in October.  It is delivered by a mix of trainers and entrepreneurs, over six weekends, and at the end of the programme participants file a short feasibility study. The participant is then given a mentor for 5 sessions. The total cost of the programme is €275, with the balance of costs funded by EI and FAS. Contact Paul DOT Healy AT cit DOT ie for details