Start-up Central

NEWS, VIEWS AND PROFILES ON THE LATEST START-UPS IN IRELAND

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Increase in net employment achieved by the 56 participants in the latest Going for Growth female entrepreneurs programme. Their combined turnover increased by 8.8% to reach over €176m.

HOW IT ALL STARTED

LOUELLA MORTON and SHEENA BAILEY,

CO-FOUNDERS, TESTREACH

What problem are you solving with TestReach?

Until this technology was developed, there was no way to provide professional online invigilation combined with assessment delivery, all within one single application. What’s the best advice you were given?

Always plan for things to take longer than you expect and build in contingency. This advice has proven invaluable across so many different areas, from hiring staff to closing deals. What has been the most important lesson you have learned?

The people in a company are by far its biggest asset and it’s really important that everyone enjoys a positive work environment, in which they feel valued as a contributor.

Your biggest make or break moment?

The Covid-19 pandemic certainly represented a pivotal moment for TestReach. Almost overnight there was huge demand to run exams remotely as test centre networks shut down globally. Although it was a huge opportunity for us, scaling so quickly was challenging. Is there anything you would change in hindsight?

We would probably be a bit more protective of our time and more selective about making commitments. When you’re starting out, there is a tendency to say “yes” to everything without fully understanding the impact it may have. Company: TestReach, founded in 2014 Location: NexusUCD, University College Dublin Product: End-to-end, cloud-based solution for exams Staff: 70

Website: www.testreach.com

MORE SPACE FOR START-UPS AT GEC

Guinness Enterprise Centre (GEC) launched its new 100,000 sq ft space in November as part of an €11m expansion project. Due to strong demand, GEC has already committed 80% of its additional capacity to start-ups and expects to be at full capacity by early 2022. The expansion consists of two additional floors at the GEC’s home in Dublin’s Liberties and is resulting in a 75% increase in net floor space with capacity for 762 start-up employees. Collectively, the investment will enable the GEC to support 150 resident companies, up from 85. The facility can accommodate 220 co-working companies, up from 160.

END-OF-LIFE PLANNING SERVICE LAUNCHES

Dara O’Shea and Louise O’Brien have launched RHEA, describing it as “Ireland’s first dedicated, end-of-life event planning company”. With over 30 years’ event planning and management experience between them, O’Shea and O’Brien have worked on events of all sizes, including the visit of the Prince of Wales to University College Cork in 2018. “Our unique service was born out of personal experience of loss, and seeing firsthand the burden of work that falls on families during the most difficult days of a death,” said O’Shea. Based in Cork, RHEA provides a full suite of bespoke memorial event design and planning services.

Dr Lyn Markey, Co-founder, XTremedy Medical and Enterprise Ireland Executive Director Stephen Creaner

XTremedy shines at Big Ideas event

Dr Lyn Markey, Co-founder of XTremedy Medical, won the ‘One to Watch’ award at Enterprise Ireland’s Big Ideas event in November, beating 11 other investor-ready start-ups in the pitching competition. In the process of spinning out from NUI Galway, XTremedy is focused on tackling the serious problem of deep tissue and bone infections. It has developed a surgical device that delivers electrical signals through the wound, treating both the surface and below to zap any residual infection and prevent unnecessary amputations. The Xtremedy platform has scope to expand into the wider chronic wounds, trauma and surgical-site infection markets. Other pitches at Big Ideas 2021 included for innovations to prevent chemo-induced hair loss and wearable therapy to treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Founded in 2018, sports tech company Output Sports has added three world-renowned sports practitioners to its board – Jo Clubb, Nic Gill and Les Spellman. A performance science consultant, Clubb has worked with English Premier League teams and American sports teams. Gill has been the strength and conditioning coach for the New Zealand All Blacks for the past 14 years, while Spellman is one of the US’s elite speed performance coaches. “We are driven to merge state-of-the art R&D with a simple and e icient user experience for exercise testing and monitoring. Our world-class board will ensure our system development will always match the needs of practitioners and athletes at all levels of sport,” said Cofounder Dr Martin O’Reilly. In February 2020 Output Sports launched Output Capture, which uses advanced signal processing and machine learning techniques to test and track athletic performance. With clients in more than 18 countries, the company is currently looking to raise a scaling round of over €3m.

EV charging innovation a winner

A start-up which is developing a novel electrical vehicle (EV) charging system scooped the 2021 University College Dublin Start-Up of the Year Award in December. Go Eve is focused on commercialising a patentpending ‘DockChain’ technology for charging EVs at scale. The DockChain innovation allows multiple parking spaces to be rapidly ‘electrified’ from one base power source with a daisy chain of inexpensive and simple charging points. The technology can significantly reduce the costs involved with charging large numbers of EVs. “We currently plan to run three pilot programmes with three customers during 2022 and are seeking to secure seed investment of €3m,” said CEO and CO-founder Hugh Sheehy.

Hugh Sheehy, Co-founder and CEO, Go Eve Julian Eberle, Dr Martin O’Reilly and Dr Darragh Whelan, Co-founders, Output Sports