Irish startup HR Locker honoured at Microsoft Paris conference
25th of May 2010 by admin
Guest Post: Paul Browne is a Development Advisor at Enterprise Ireland (EI), working with Irish Software companies to increase exports, and export led jobs. A key area is Cloud and Software as a Service)
You may have already seen the posts on Enterprise Ireland’s BestConnected blog about the work that Enterprise Ireland and Microsoft are doing to help the Entrepreneur Community in Ireland. One of the companies benefitting from this approach is HR Locker
HR Locker is a web 2.0 provider of HR Solutions to Business. That's HR as in Employee Records, TimeSheets and compliance (making sure everybody has a suitable contract). Today, at the Microsoft Bizspark European Conference, John Dennehy from HR Locker got shortlisted into the Top 18 Startups in Europe.
As part of the prize, John got the chance to pitch the HR Locker Business to a panel including Brent Hoberman (founder LastMinute.com), Loic LeMeur (Seesmic), Stefan Glaenzer (former chairman Last.FM) , and 8 other seasoned VC’s and investors. On offer for the best business model / pitch from the 18 companies is a €10,000 cash prize.
Prior to founding HR Locker, John John has worked in the Internet sector for the past 14 years. He co-founded Upstart Games, a global developer and publisher of mobile phone games, which was acquired in Nov 2006. The company had offices in Tokyo, Beijing, New York, LA, Dublin and Cork.
Microsoft’s view on HR Locker and Enterprise Ireland
BizSpark Network Partner Enterprise Ireland is an excellent example of an organisation that is helping to nurture next-generation start-ups. Microsoft and Enterprise Ireland collaborate to help entrepreneurs in Ireland to maximise the opportunities available to them. Outside the USA, Ireland is host to the largest BizSpark community.
One example is HR Locker, one of the finalists at this year's European Investor Summit. HR Locker has benefited from being part of BizSpark and has received business and financial support from Enterprise Ireland (see separate profile). Other BizSpark members that work with both Microsoft and Enterprise Ireland include TradeFacilitate and InishTech.
Gary Fallon, Country Manager, Enterprise Ireland France:
Microsoft have played a key part with Enterprise Ireland’s software clients, encouraging them to innovate and helping them to access new markets. Microsoft has consistently supported many of our software companies throughout their development and is a key platform for supporting them in developing new business opportunities in the French market.