Harvest these websites to find angel investors
Posted by David Smith on 15 November, 2010 in Archive | Entrepreneurship | Inventors - (Be the first to comment)

Although many start-up financing deals end with face-to-face meetings, the process often begins through online angel investor communities. In no particular order, here are 10 sites to visit:

  1. 1. Angelsoft provides entrepreneurs access to 450+ VC and angel groups that use its business planning and funding platform, which helps to manage the deal flow of early equity investments.
  2. GoBigNetwork, which claims to be the largest community of start-up investors, allows users to search for start-ups seeking funding, investors looking to provide funding, service providers for small businesses, and experts in various fields.
  3. FundingUniverse is a network of more than 100,000 entrepreneurs that analyzes all possible funding options to seek a start-up’s best match, create its path to funding, and connect it with active funding sources.
  4. TheFunded.com is an online community of more than 14,500 CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs that offers opportunities to discuss fundraising, rate and review investors, and discuss strategies to grow a start-up. The website provides reviews of angel investor networks and individual angels to help entrepreneurs seek the best potential investors for their business.
  5. Angel Deals charges a modest annual fee to assist entrepreneurs in learning about the angel investment process, creating a business plan and executive summary, developing a compelling presentation, and opening doors to potential investors. (more…)

Investment partnership to assist Irish companies expand into US
Posted by David Smith on 29 October, 2010 in Archive | Economic | Funding | Inventors - (Be the first to comment)

From the IrishTimes.com

ENTERPRISE EQUITY and Silicon Valley-based Irish Technology Capital (ITC) have formed a partnership to raise a $100-million (€72 million) venture capital firm that will accelerate the expansion of Irish firms into the US.

John Hartnett, founder and chief executive of ITC, said the two investment firms were currently fundraising but had “identified funds” that would contribute to the $100 million total.

Enterprise Equity is an Irish venture capital firm which has invested €50 million in more than 70 companies in the last decade.

Focusing on deals of up to €1.5 million, it manages the €53 million AIB Seed Capital Fund.

Read the full article at IrishTimes.com

Ireland’s Premier Engineering, Architecture and Project Management Firm Acquires Silicon Valley-based Specialist Engineering Firm
Posted by Enterprise Ireland Admin on 1 October, 2010 in Archive | BioPharma | CleanTech | Engineering | Inventors - (Be the first to comment)

PM Group Expands into US;
Buys San Jose’s Greene Engineers; Opens Facility in Boston
PMG_Low Res_LogoSAN JOSE, Calif. and DUBLIN, Ireland, Oct. 1, 2010—PM Group Ireland’s largest engineering, architecture and project management firm, today announced that it has acquired Greene Engineers, a San Jose-based engineering services company with special expertise in the mission-critical facilities, cleantech, greentech, healthcare and life sciences sectors. Also today, PM Group opened a facility in Boston. The move marks PM Group’s expansion into the US, a core element of its global growth strategy, and brings the company closer to the home base of many key longtime clients.

Headquartered in Dublin, PM Group designs complex, mission-critical facilities for advanced technology, life sciences, R&D and healthcare sectors globally for Fortune 500 clients. The company has annual revenues of $320 million and employs more than 1,700 people working in 25 countries. Two-thirds of its business comes from US multinational clients that include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott, Merck, Mars/Wrigley, Diageo, 3M, Dell and IBM, among many others.

A well-known engineering services firm in San Jose, Silicon Valley, Greene was founded in 1954 and serves a broad portfolio of companies with mechanical, electrical and chemical engineering expertise. With annual revenues of $5 million, the company is behind many landmark buildings in the region. They include: IBM’s Almaden Research Center, Stanford University’s new Science and Engineering Quad, and 300 Santana Row in San Jose, which is a LEED Gold Certified building. The Greene team has established a stellar reputation for its work in the solar panel, LED and electric car sectors. From today, the company will be known as PM Greene Engineers.

The acquisition represents PM Group’s first in the US. It will enhance the company’s existing expertise in the biopharama, med tech, food/nutritionals and data center/mission-critical sectors, and provides a gateway to the growing clean- and- greentech sectors. PM Greene Engineers will help execute on PM Group’s vision to create a center of excellence focused on advanced technology, cleantech and biotech in San Jose in Silicon Valley. Through its network of offices around the world, PM Group will help Greene follow its US clients as they expand internationally.

Commenting on the US initiatives, Pat McGrath, PM Group CEO, said, “We have been planning this move for some time and believe that we found the right company in Greene Engineers. Their team is exceptional and their business strategy complements ours. The acquisition provides an excellent opportunity for us to grow our US presence and take our expertise into new areas. We extend a warm welcome to our new employees and we look forward to benefiting from their strengths. The combination of our West Coast presence and our new Boston location provides an excellent platform for growth. We’re looking forward to building our business here in the coming years.”

“This is a very exciting development for Greene Engineers and a real benefit to our clients,” said CEO Chris Greene. “By joining PM Group, we can provide our clients with new and expanded services of a large organization with a broad global footprint. We can considerably enhance our specialist offerings, work on larger projects and bring new value to our existing clients. We’re delighted to join the PM Group team.”

About PM Group
PM Group is an international provider of professional services in engineering, architecture and project management. Headquartered in Ireland, PM Group’s multi-disciplinary teams of more than 1,700 people deliver complex capital projects to clients in the Biopharmaceutical; Advanced Manufacturing; Medical Technologies; Food and Nutritionals; Research and Development; Energy; Healthcare and University Education; sectors. Highly committed to the PM Greene Engineers is a firm of specialist mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers serving the Cleantech, Data Center, Advanced Technology, Greentech, Healthcare and Life Sciences sectors.
Founded in 1954, PM Greene Engineers has a long history of working and serving clients in Silicon Valley. Beginning with three research buildings for Stanford University over 50 years ago, PM Greene Engineers now designs facilities for companies, universities and research institutes that have made Silicon Valley the world’s technology capital.

The high technology engineering systems that PM Greene Engineers designs include clean & aseptic environments, chemical storage, high-purity process piping, high purity water, industrial waste treatment, power and lighting, process controls, emergency power and UPS systems, building management, and life safety systems.
From the earliest days of the electronics and bioscience revolutions, to today’s growth in healthcare, datacom and greentech, PM Greene Engineers has been a pioneer in the design of the sophisticated engineering systems required by mission-critical facilities. Greene is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, and is committed to designing facilities that are energy and water efficient

PM Greene Engineers is part of highly skilled multi-disciplinary teams of more than 1,700 people with specialist expertise in the delivery of complex projects.

www.greene-engineers.com

Greene Engineers bought by Irish giant
Posted by Enterprise Ireland Admin on in Archive | Engineering | Inventors - (Be the first to comment)

Irish investment in California continues to grow. This morning, PM Group, Ireland’s largest engineering, architecture and project management company acquired San Jose’s Greene Engineers – a specialist engineering firm. Below, L2R: Pat McGrath, CEO PM Group; Chris Greene, CEO, PM Greene Engineers in San Jose following the closing of the acquisition.

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal – by Mary Duan

Engineering services company Greene Engineers of San Jose has agreed to be acquired by Ireland’s largest engineering, architecture and project management firm, a deal that gives market expansion opportunities to both companies.

The acquisition enables the company to double in size to about 60 people at its headquarters on Technology Drive near the San Jose Airport. Greene is looking to open an office elsewhere in the Bay Area, possibly along the Interstate 680 corridor. It will also explore opening an office in Southern California.

The company works in a niche space that focuses on mechanical, chemical and electrical engineering for high-tech facilities. For the current deal to work, Greene needed a global partner that focused on the same markets.

The Irish Invent!
Posted by Enterprise Ireland Admin on 27 September, 2010 in Archive | History | Inventors - (Be the first to comment)

Everyone knows the Irish are well recognized for their work in a range of of the creative arts like music, literature, acting, fashion and craftwork. What’s not so well heralded is the Irish penchant for and strong legacy of Invention. In recent article by Darragh McManus for the Irish Independent a prestigious list of Irish inventors is chronicled.

Here’s a quick snapshot of some potentially under-appreciated Irish innovators and inventors…

  • Robert Boyle: (left) Considered the founder of modern chemistry. Over the course of a long and fruitful career, he invented a pneumatic pump, the first match and a perpetual motion machine, discovered decompression sickness and formulated the famous law, named after himself, which states that the volume of a gas varies inversely to the pressure of the gas. He also found time to write scores of theological essays. His book, The Sceptical Chymist is seen as a cornerstone book in the field of chemistry.
  • Ernest Walton and John Cockcroft: Were the first to artificially split the atom, thus creating nuclear physics and making possible power-stations, A-bombs and everything they brought with them.
  • John P Holland: Inspired by Jules Verne’s science fiction and funded by Fenian money Holland was the inventor of the first submarine.
  • Aeneas Coffey: Created the column still, which is useful in the distillation of alcoholic spirits.
  • Dr James Drumm: Invented the rechargeable nickel-zinc battery, which is today used in cordless tools and telephones, digital cameras, electric vehicles and loads of other places.
  • Robert Mallet: Considered the father of seismology — the study of earthquakes and related seismic events such as tsunamis, volcanoes and tectonic shifts. He coined the term “epicentre”, carried out experiments to discover an earthquake’s effect on rock and showed that volcanic heat was caused by movement in the earth’s crust.
  • Harry Ferguson: Nicknamed “The Mad Mechanic”, created a new type of plough, motorbike, racing car and plane.
  • Sir James Martin: Invented the world’s first ejector seat.
  • Francis Rynd: Created hypodermic syringe and administered the first subcutaneous injection at Meath Hospital in Dublin.
  • John Joly: Invented an early process for colour photography and pioneered the use of radiotherapy in treating cancer.

To read more about these and other great Irish Inventors, Innovators and Creators check out the entire article here.

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