" It's a small island in a big ocean, but we’ve reached the world from here…”
In recent years, Ireland, and Dublin in particular has become a haven for many a great tech startup to get established, validated and funded. The conditions are just right here at the moment for the startup movement to really flourish and many of the supports (financial and qualitative) are very much in place.
Startup Grind Ireland is the perfect event for our country at this moment. We’ve seen so many fantastic products and founders blossom only to leave our shores, bound for the promised land of Silicon Valley and beyond.
Incubators such as Launchpad, Hothouse, The Incubation Centre at National College of Ireland, Wayra and Startup Bootcamp are playing a pivotal role in supporting the endeavours of many of Ireland’s young entrepreneurs. Both native and international VCs have turned their attention to this new outflow of clever Irish companies with potent, scalable products and ideas. Ireland has been long proven as a haven that can produce successful and internationally scalable companies. Think IONA Technologies, HostelWorld and Havoc.
Besides incubator programmes and VC funding, Enterprise Ireland, the state’s funding body for HPSU (High-Potential Startup) companies provides generous financial supports when these parameters are met, supplying an extra source of assistance for newly founded companies.
Companies like Storyful and Jolt Online Gaming are classic examples of how Irish founders have a very real awareness of how technology is forcing age-old industries to adapt and re-think how they should work, both in news and in gaming. If that wasn't enough to convince you that we're ahead of the curve, IDA Ireland and leading members of the country’s diaspora have been instrumental in bringing companies like Facebook, Twitter, PayPal, LinkedIn, Intel, Yahoo, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard to set up EMEA headquarters here. The economic parameters favour FDI and startup ventures too. A corporation tax rate of 12.5%, a well-educated workforce and a rich, friendly culture all lend to Ireland’s appeal.
Events like the Dublin Web Summit and F.ounders have heralded Ireland as a meeting ground for the international tech community. Events like these have seen literally hundreds of tech founders (with Jack Dorsey and Niklas Zennström among them) fly to Dublin for an invite-only rendezvous with their international counterparts. When you're invited to a gathering of tech founders that has previously seen Bono lead a pub-crawl of entrepreneurs through the city streets - forget the rain checks! Diaspora members such as Bono and others have lead the charge along with the IDA in forming key relationships within the industry, which in many cases have converted to FDI.
Lest we forget, the Irish start-up community is also thriving in tandem with the internationally traded services of MNCs - there's so much animation in the tech sector as a whole. This map of Dublin's Startups from two years ago (there’s a LOT more now) gives an illustration of the size of the city and the amount of HPSU firms in it.
But besides startups, VCs, incubators and giants like Facebook, Dublin also has a beautiful and distinct cultural identity. Guinness, U2 and James Joyce are among some of our more pre dot-com exports that still contribute significantly to economic activity.
On September 19th, Startup Grind will host its inaugural event in Ireland with Sean O’Sulllivan (already sold out by the way). Sean is well known for many things, but currently he’s devoting his time to being the MD of his own VC firm, SOS Ventures and the Founder of Avego, a social ride-sharing app with operations in New York, Beijing and Cork. This will all take place at O2 Telefonica’s Wayra Academy in the Dublin Docklands. The Academy will be receiving it’s first round of startups just 1 week before the meetup, so timing is perfect.
About The Author: Darren Mulvihill is the Chapter Director of Startup Grind Ireland, and Head of Seed Investing at The Lucey Fund, Lucey Technology, a Dublin based cloud specialist with offices in London. Follow him on Twitter: @DarrenMulvihill, @LuceyFund