InsulCheck raises €350,000 investment and creates 12 jobs

John Phelan, manager of Halo Business Angel Partnership and John Hughes, co-founder and managing director of InsulCheck
John Phelan, manager of Halo Business Angel Partnership and John Hughes, co-founder and managing director of InsulCheck

Halo Business Angel Partnership (HBAP), the Irish business angel network, has announced that diabetes medical device company InsulCheck has secured investment of €350,000 to facilitate its international growth strategy.

The investment will fund new product development and the creation of 12 jobs over the next two years, bringing the total number of employees to 15.

The investment was facilitated by HBAP, managed by Dublin Business Innovation Centre, and came from multiple sources including HBAP angel investors, AIB Seed Capital Fund and Enterprise Ireland. The new jobs will be in the areas of research and development, design, logistics, and sales and marketing.

InsulCheck was founded in 2009 and officially launched its first product in March 2012. It has developed a small clip-on attachment for insulin pens that automatically records the time since the last injection on a digital display. This provides safety and certainty for insulin pen users, as it removes any doubt around when they last took their injection, an extremely important part of managing their condition.

John Hughes, co-founder and managing director of InsulCheck said: “There are currently 50 million people worldwide who use insulin pens and over 50,000 of those are in Ireland. I myself have diabetes and the inspiration for this device came from an incident in 2008, when I accidently double injected and suffered a hypo-glycaemic event, which resulted in me being hospitalised.

“HBAP and the angel investors have played a crucial role in helping us to understand the medical device market, channels of distribution and to accelerate market penetration. Dublin BIC has also provided us with a lot of guidance in developing and finalising our business plan. As we grow the business, its advice and expertise is invaluable.”

HBAP matches private investors with pre-screened investment opportunities in start-up, early-stage and developing businesses. These business angels provide not only financial support but also deep industry knowledge. HBAP is managed by Dublin BIC and delivered by the regional Irish BICs.

HBAP’s key role was matching InsulCheck with investors, who have expertise in medical sales, marketing and distribution.