Small Business

‘Champions’ sought to drive the creation of start-up communities around Ireland Start-up Ireland has launched a national call for ‘start-up champions’ in each of Ireland’s cities who would lead start-up initiatives. A key part of the role of these start-up champions will be to help get the basic tools of successful start-up communities in place. These include a digest of relevant events, an infographic of start-up resources in the area, networking opportunities, a monthly showcase for start-ups and a Startup Weekend every six to 12 months. Start-up Ireland is a not-for-profit grassroots organization providing an independent focal point for the Irish startup community regionally, nationally and internationally with the objective…

In planning for the year ahead, the focus for many small and medium-sized businesses will be to leverage success, achieve profitability and maximise and capitalise upon business opportunities, writes Maura Quinn. To ensure competitiveness and to remain resilient, it is vital that your business is operating efficiently and effectively, that there is a clear path to realising your business strategy and that you are delivering for your customers. Below are five areas to focus on to develop your business in 2014 and beyond. Bring your strategic plans to life Far too many business plans end up on the shelf, with little attention given to them from one year to the…

Four start-ups drawn from Ireland north and south have been selected to pitch at Northern Ireland’s newest entrepreneurial support network. Friday Night Mashup is a regular event series created to connect and empower entrepreneurs to go out and take on the world. CanDo3D, Komodo and Pirate Dashboard from the North and Sian’s Plan from the Republic of Ireland will demo at the event on Friday, 29 November at the Titanic Docks and Pumphouse in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. Over 150 leading figures in tech, business, investment, and media from Belfast, Dublin, and Derry will attend the event, which aims to provide a platform for new talent and act as a launch…

Host Ireland Business Broadband is moving to a new office complex in Dublin and is to create 15 new jobs in the next six to eight months. Development has started on the new office, occupying the entire second floor of the former Guinness Mahon Bank building on Trinity Street and involving an investment of €120,000. On track to achieve 45pc turnover this year, the privately-owned technology company recently signed a €1.2m deal with Sharp Security in Dublin for security monitoring telecoms infrastructure and will have doubled its workforce in 2013 to 21 people. Employee numbers are expected to almost double again in 2014, with countrywide roll-out of its high performance…

London company Import.io and New York’s Placemeter were announced as the Later Stage Company and the Early Stage Company award winners respectively at the Pitch 2013 presented by Box competition at the Dublin Web Summit yesterday. The winners were chosen from a shortlist of 150 finalists after two days of intense pitching in front of thousands of people including the world’s foremost technology leaders and prospective investors. Import.io employs 16 people in its London headquarters and in its office in San Francisco.  The company’s stated mission is to structure the web and make web data available to everyone. “We are focused on growing our company and it means a lot to…

Increased Threshold for SME Loan Appeals and Enhanced SME Supports A number of measures have been announced affecting the SME sector in Budget 2014, including the threshold being increased increased from €500,000 to €3m for SME loan appeals to the Credit Review Office (CRO) and €2 billion in SME supports. The CRO helps SME or farm borrowers who have had an application for credit declined or reduced and who feel they have a viable business proposition. Introduction of a Two-Day Programme for SMEs This is expected to facilitate requests from a broader range of SMEs as well as large requests for refinancing. Among the State supports to SMEs announced is…

Dublin-headquartered Induction Manager said today that it is creating nine new jobs after raising €400,000 in funding to support its growth strategy. Business angel investors from Cork-based Boole Investment Syndicate provided €100,000 of the investment with the remainder raised from Enterprise Ireland and other private investors. The nine new roles will be in the areas of sales and customer support and will all be based from the company’s Dublin office. Induction Manager also has a presence in London with 90pc of its business coming from the UK. Induction Manager is an online induction platform for large organisations in UK and Ireland. Customers of Induction Manager customise the platform to suit…

University College Dublin (UCD) cloud-based spin-out Logentries has secured $10m in Series A financing and named Andrew Burton as president and CEO. Co-founded in 2010 by Dr Trevor Parsons and Dr Viliam Holub, Logentries is a service provider for collecting and analysing huge quantities of machine-generated log data. It currently actively services over 10,000 users across more than 100 countries, processing more the 20 billion log events per day. The financing round was led by Polaris Partners, along with Floodgate, Frontline Ventures and RRE Ventures. Logentries will use the funds to accelerate product development and aggressively drive a go-to-market strategy. Unlike costly log management alternatives that require advanced technical skills…

Increase in Start-ups and New Companies A total of 9,327 company and business start-ups were recorded this quarter – up 8pc on the same period in 2012 – showing an average of 108 start-ups per day, according to figures from Vison-net. Of these, 5,727 were registered business names while 3,600 new companies were incorporated, up 16pc on the same period last year. First-Time Company Directors Almost 4,600 people have become director of Irish companies for the first time this quarter. Based on an analysis of almost 4,600 appointments this quarter, the average age of a first time company director is 42, with men accounting for over 60pc of first time…

Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the Web Summit will host a one-day trading online workshop for small to medium-sized companies on the eve of Europe’s biggest tech event. Entitled ‘Basecamp,’ the workshop will provide businesses with expert advice and insights from digital leaders at Google, PayPal, and Facebook. The event will take place at the Aviva Stadium on Tuesday, 29 October. Irish consumers currently spend about €3.7bn per year online, and it is expected to grow to €5.7bn by 2016. However, only a quarter of current online sales goes to Irish businesses, and just 23pc of Irish SMEs are trading online. International research shows that SMEs who adopt online trading…