Americas

Thursday, May 20, 2010: Green technology produced by Irish company Nualight, a leader in LED Lighting for food retail merchandising, is to be implemented across Tesco stores in the UK and USA.

The deal will be worth up to €5 million to Nualight in 2010, growing by up to €10 million by 2013. On the back of the deal, Cork-based Nualight is to create 25 new jobs including graduate export positions to add to the 55 currently employed, with employment likely to grow to 80 in the next two years.

The announcement, which was made in Dublin between Sir Terry Leahy, the Chief Executive of Tesco, Mr Tony Keohane, the CEO of Tesco Ireland and Mr Liam Kelly, the CEO of Nualight, was also welcomed by Mr Batt O’Keeffe TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation. Read the rest of this entry »

Published May 28th, 2010 by admin in Archive, CleanTech, EI Client News, News Press | Post a Comment »

Today’s retailer shopper is on the go and constantly moving.  They are more likely to leave home or their office and forget their wallet than their mobile phone.  Retailers that want to expand both sales and customer loyalty have to explore all retail channels including store-front, web and now the mobile phone.

MobileAware is redefining the way enterprises engage their customers, harnessing the power of their customers’ mobile devices to deliver a compelling customer interaction channel.  Based in Dublin, Ireland, MobileAware has been providing mobile solutions across many industries since 1999.  Their customers include more than 20 Mobile Operators and some of the world’s largest Airlines, Banks and Retailers.  MobileAware is unique in offering our solutions on a traditional licensed platform basis for on-premise deployment, on a hosted/managed outsourced basis. Read the rest of this entry »

Published May 27th, 2010 by eoin in Archive, Consumer/Retail, Economic, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

BY MAJELLA LOFTUS of Western People

WESTPORT firm Carraig Donn Manufacturing has struck a deal valued at more than €1m with one of the world’s largest shopping channels.

The company, which has its headquarters at Lodge Road in Westport, secured the groundbreaking contract with teleshopping channel, QVC, and will now see its knitwear featured on television shows in America from next November.

The deal – worth in the region of $1.2m – will ensure that the Mayo company becomes the first Irish knitwear firm to feature on QVC mainstream shows.

Up to now, QVC has promoted Irish products exclusively on two days per year – St Patrick’s Day and one day in September to coincide with the Rose of Tralee festival. The combined sales over these two days are said to be close to $20m so the prospects for Carraig Donn from this latest deal are very exciting. The company sold more than 30,000 knitwear garments in a 24-hour period last September. Read full article

Published May 27th, 2010 by admin in Archive, Consumer/Retail | Post a Comment »

Dublin, Ireland – 19 May 2010 – Mobile video specialist Movidius today announced that it has secured US$7.5 million in Series B investment. The funding round has been concluded with existing shareholders including Celtic House Venture Partners, Capital E, Emertec Gestion, AIB Seed Capital Fund and angel investors. This round will be used to fund Movidius’ growth plans as the company begins deployment of its Myriad platform providing advanced imaging capabilities including 3D video capture in the next generation of mobile handsets.

Read the rest of this entry »

Published May 25th, 2010 by admin in Archive, EI Client News, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil | Comments Off

Every other week Enterprise-Ireland Americas clients are featured and profiled in the Irish Examiner’s Enterprise and Entrepreneurship section. This week they take a closer look at R&D at the University of Limerick, show how Ticket Truck is driving social commerce on Facebook, and highlight Weedle’s expansion of their social networking platform in the United States.

http://irishexaminerusa.com/mt/2010/05/18-week/index.php

Published May 21st, 2010 by admin in Archive, EI Client News, News Press, Software/Services, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

Enterprise  Ireland has an initiative to attract entrepreneurs to start-up in Ireland, with an emphasis on financial software and/or service ventures. We are hosting receptions next month in Boston (June 2nd) and in New York (June 3rd) to provide an overview of how Enterprise Ireland can help and to bring together the Irish financial network.  If you happen to be in town, we would be delighted to have you join us.  Please know this is intended primarily for those with an interest in financial services sector.

Event details:
June 2nd
Irish Consulate
535 Boylston Street, Floor 5
Boston MA, 02116

June 3rd
Consul General’s Residence
240 East 39th Street, Apt 52c
New York, NY 10016

Please RSVP to Philip.McHugh@enterprise-ireland.com or call +1 212 546 0485 for more details.

Published May 19th, 2010 by admin in Archive, Economic, Events, InfoSecurity, Software/Services | Post a Comment »

New initiative will build on historical and cultural ties

Dublin, Ireland, May 18, 2010: A delegation of Irish publishers will arrive in New York City next week on a mission to captivate American readers and build trade ties with local publishers.

The delegation consisting of representatives of Ireland’s leading publishing houses, and supported by Publishing Ireland and Culture Ireland, will be promoting Irish literature and publishing at the annual BookExpo America (BEA) in New York, from 25 to 27 May. This will be is the first year that Ireland has an official presence at America’s largest book trade fair.

The delegation will also host a networking event in association with Culture Ireland and the Irish Consul, at the Consul’s private residence in New York City on Tuesday, May 25th. Eminent Irish American business people, US publishers and a number of literary figures will attend the event.

“Literature and writing are some of Ireland’s most successful exports, and we are hoping this initiative will help Irish publishers to benefit from our country’s rich cultural output,” said Jean Harrington, President of Publishing Ireland.

The island of Ireland has made a disproportionately large contribution to the world of literature, producing some of the 20th century’s greatest writers, including James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Samuel Beckett, George Bernard Shaw and Seamus Heaney.

“Despite the fact that Ireland continues to punch well above its weight in the world of literature and writing, Irish publishers have yet to see significant sales in the US,” said Ms Harrington.

She added that even though Irish publishers nurtured the talents of, and published early works by renowned Irish authors such as Maeve Binchy, Roddy Doyle, Colum McCann, ColmTóibín, Joseph O’Connor, Eoin Colfer and Neil Jordan, British publishing houses ultimately reaped the dividends of their international success.

Ireland has strong historical and cultural ties with the US – over 36 million Americans claim Irish ancestry and St Patrick’s Day is celebrated in dozens of cities and towns across the US. Ms Harrington said these links provide an impetus for increased trade contact between Irish and American publishers.

A number of Irish publishing houses have already established successful partnerships in the US; recent successes include: Little Brown acquiring Celine Kiernan’s Moorehawke Trilogy from the O’Brien Press and St Martin’s Press purchasing rights in Ken Bruen’s break-out Jack Taylor novels from Brandon.

Jean Harrington, President of Publishing Ireland, is available for interview. Contact Gert Ackermann on +353 86 176 9287, or email gert.ackermann@gmail.com.

Published May 19th, 2010 by eoin in Archive, Consumer, EI Client News, Events, News Press | Post a Comment »

During the past 12 years Ireland has seen the largest construction boom in its history. This has spawned a construction sector that is highly skilled with a full spectrum of capabilities in developing and designing sustainable buildings. With a cluster of Irish clients in the green building space Enterprise Ireland is leveraging that experience to promote and bring about awareness to the more sustainable green building products and design services available from Irish companies.

Some of the key objectives for the EI Green Building 2010 Initiative are to:

• Gain an understanding of the opportunities for new green buildings and retrofits in the United States
• Learn about the US. Green building market, have an opportunity to evaluate the U.S. competition and learn of emerging trends.
• Raise awareness within the U.S. construction industry of the capabilities available in Ireland, and tap into the opportunities emerging in the U.S. relative to the green building movement.
• Start a dialog with relevant organizations and seek opportunities to engage them on how Irish companies offer sustainable solutions in the construction sector.

Part 1 of the Green Building Initiative 2010 took place on March 16^th and 17^th in conjunction with An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen’s Trade Mission to the United States. Fourteen Enterprise Ireland clients participated at a one-day information sharing seminar and panel discussion with key opinion leaders and decision makers steering the U.S. green building movement. On March 17^th, clients attended a study visit to the headquarters of the Green Building Council, a LEED Platinum certified commercial office Building and also met with RTKL Architects, a Washington D.C. based Architectural firm with offices throughout the U.S.

Published May 15th, 2010 by admin in Archive, CleanTech, EI Client News, Events, Programs/Events, Trade Mission | 1 Comment - Post a Comment

EVENT NOTES – May 13 2010  #gabaeu -
by, David Smith, SVP Telecoms – Enterprise Ireland-Americas

Dr. Sven Schade, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission
In the USA European entrepreneurs are as numerous as Indian entrepreneurs but we lack a EU equivalent of TIE

Professor Bernd Girod, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
Keynote 1: How the Future Was Invented Entrepreneurship and Innovation Silicon Valley style

- Founded all his companies in the USA, never in the EU

- Now an active angel investor

- The future was invented on Oct 29 1969 10.30 pm when the first email as sent from UCLA to Stanford

- Alan Kay “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” in 1968 foretold the portable PC

- From invention to innovation is a big gap – Schumpeter, change is resisted and needs “creative destruction” – we must embrace creative destruction

- In the information and communications technology (Infocom) field entrepreneurs are usually young (in there 20’s), come from top universities (even if half drop out) – open standards / open architectures drive innovation as a platform for others to build upon with a low hurdle to entry

- Mobile voice telephony will be obsolete soon as broadband grows

- “Predictions are difficult, especially when they are about the future” Niels Bohr

- “The future is already here – it is just unevenly distributed” William Gibson – that is why Silicon Valley is so important, it may be here already in Stanford, Berkeley etc

- Stanford spin-outs – HP, SUN, Silicon Graphics, Cisco, Yahoo!, Google, and more…. (Market cap of these alone is over $500 bn)

- Innovation is all about people

- Need very innovative research based universities – see none of them in EU

Panel 1: Success Stories from European Entrepreneurs They made it here – How do they give back to Europe?
Moderator: Dr. Angelika Blendstrup, Founder & Principal, Blendstrup & Associates

- Author of “how they made it”

- In Silicon Valley people are very tolerant of immigrants / outsiders – more a salad than a melting pot: all different but all welcomed

- The elephant in the room: wealth. In Europe, it’s shocking to be rich from your own work vs. Inherited

Michael Hughes, CEO, Ring2

- From Wales, here since 1995, conference collocation company

- Has done 2 EU led start-ups in Silicon Valley

- Should do a visa to get young EU graduates into the USA to join start-ups – that would breed innovation culture, need more movement of people

- Need to be physically in the valley to build a buzz, do the face-to-face networking

Konstantin Guericke, Co-founder, LinkedIn

- Most EU graduates are not risk-takers and start-ups thrive on risk

- The “old school” from EU does not work in EU – no one knows a good EU university from a bad one but they do recognize smart people regardless of the background

- VC in EU are changing to be more risk takers

- VC access is much easier in Silicon Valley

- VCs don’t like France, hard to float/sells companies for an exit

- Mimic Israeli model – start-up and leave engineering in Israel, very early move sales and management and funding in USA

- Need to teach entrepreneurship and risk taking in EU

Roman Stanek, CEO, GoodData

- The critical mass is in Silicon Valley – a concentration of risk takers

- The east-coast of USA is like EU – risk adverse, low number of start-ups

- It is not about the concentration of people it is about being on the forefront of innovation like Silicon Valley

-Silicon Valley is a souk – everyone goes there to compare goods and share information

- Education is better in SV

Marylene Delbourg-Delphis, Board of Directors, Objective Marketer

- Would consider doing her next venture in Cian to access talent

- Boston had its time for innovation but the industry changed and moved to Silicon Valley

- The large number of holidays in EU is absurd for a start-up culture

- No need to get an intro to talk to people in Silicon Valley unlike in EU where it is hard to get to the right people – things move faster because of this

- French reputation of arrogance and the need “to be right” has to be overcome

Audience

Attitude to failure is different – EU a bad mark, SV opportunity to learn and try again

Keynote 2: European Scientists as Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

Professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, Chair of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley

- A startup is the opposite of the EU entitlement culture

- EU can also help USA, 2 way street

Factors for success for a scientific entrepreneur

§         Legal and financial services – pay them in stock

§         Excellent universities

§         Presence of large, medium and small companies

§         The “network” both inside and outside the company – moves along new ideas quickly

Axis for quadrant for research “quest for fundamental understanding” and “considerations of use”

In USA – professors are promoted based on contribution to many areas including professional activities and formation of new companies is encouraged

Professors are well respected in SV and industry collaboration is common and encouraged

Cannot transfer technology only transfer knowledge – need movement of people via visiting professorships and summer students, do not need a Technology Transfer Office (TTO) and most TTO people never founded start-sups or worked for large companies.  So set set up mechanisms for people movement

Does not like angel investors – do not help startups a lot, need professionals like VC’s, angels have invested their own money so are too emotionally involved

VCs bring expertise on how to start a company, bring senior executives,

SV – merit based society

Family is VIP – forms bridges automatically

Keynote 3: Innovation and Innovators in Silicon Valley
Eric Buatois, Managing Partner, Sofinnova Ventures

- 50% of VC investment in SV is into biotech

- Easier to get drugs approved and commercialized in EU than USA

SV has own issues

§         Globalization of competition – this is new for USA startups

o        50% of the employment of their VC invested companies comes from Asia

o        50% of the revenues of their VC invested companies comes from Asia

§         IPO market

o        SOC makes listing of young companies hard

o        Lack of entrepreneurial investment banking firms to push young firms

§         Immigration / visas – less pool of talent

1995 onwards SV / Indian links started to work, 2004 SV / China started to work

EU has great talent from former Eastern Europe countries

Great EU firms like ARM

The EU needs to work in a more unified way

§         The new competition for everyone is China, India, Russia not between EU countries

§         TIE – great international networking group links entrepreneurs to experienced executives

In Europe we must celebrate our entrepreneur rock stars like they do in the USA

Panel 2: Financing Innovation

VCs, Business Angels and Alternative Sources in Silicon Valley and Europe

• Steve Bengston, Managing Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ben Cho iLevitan Maveron

People will take a lower salary for equity in a start-up and also the opportunity to shape a new product

• Paul Bragiel, Partner, i/o ventures

Started 3 firms

i/o is an early stage incubator – incubate 5 companies every 6 months

Entrepreneurs who did well or have good experience give back in SV, no so much in Europe

Bring young people over from Europe to let them live the SV experience, learn the lessons and bring this back to Europe

Silicon Valley Bank

Ideas are rife. Executors are key

Failure is not bad – it is a learning process

Georges Noel  European Venture Capital Association (EVCA)

Burton Lee

How can angles do cross Atlantic investment – no mechanism Scotland has best track record on building a working angel eco-system Serial entrepreneurs are vital for a vibrant angle ecosystem. Send over third level students for a semester to SV. Get high school and third level students into “entrepreneur clubs”.

Published May 14th, 2010 by davidsmith in Archive, Telecom/Mobil | Post a Comment »

Vhi Healthcare can provide a range of private health insurance plans for Irish Expatriates living and working in the U.S.

Click to find out more information: Global VHI Flyer U S 2010

Published May 14th, 2010 by Jack Kissane in Archive, Economic, News Press | Post a Comment »