EY Entrepreneur of the Year profiles: From solar power to digital tech, crisps and emissions, here are some of this year’s nominees

Abhilash Borana, Failte Solar

Abhilash Borana is the founder and chief executive of Failte Solar, a distribution company of solar energy products. The company provides electrical vehicle charges, smart meters and safety equipment. It counts 150 companies across Ireland among its customers.

Q: What vision/light bulb moment prompted you to start in business?

A: Most of my family members run small businesses which inspired me to consider starting one. I set my sights on the solar industry because it has the potential to expand across multiple countries as the need for clean, green and renewable energy sources is a global issue.

Q: What was your “back-to-the-wall” moment and how did you overcome it?

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A: When I started my business, finance was the biggest obstacle and it was challenging to secure financial support. However, thanks to a number of smaller business opportunities, I was able to bootstrap my operations to get my business off the ground.

Q: What moment/deal would you cite as the “game changer” or turning point for the company?

A: The game changer moment for the company was spotting a gap in the solar market and signing a key vendor. In 2022, our market research was really strong and, despite the supply chain challenges, we were able to acquire a substantial market share.

Q: What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?

A: It’s important to remember that everything has a process. Just like making a good curry requires following a specific recipe and approach, every business has its own process for success. By following this, you can achieve success.

Q: To what extent does your business trade internationally and what are your future plans/ambitions?

A: Failte Solar is already operational in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Spain. As a company committed to sustainable energy solutions into the future, we are also planning to expand into Europe next year.

We are already in the process of taking care of the legal and accounting aspects of these expansions. Additionally, we are actively searching for qualified employees from these countries to join our team.

I aim to expand our reach to over 10 countries and achieve a revenue of €1 billion by 2030, all while collaborating with a team of over 200 skilled professionals.

Q: What is your growth funding path?

A: Although I haven’t pursued any funding rounds yet, I’m interested in initiating a first round and securing experienced investors to propel our business forward. I’m confident that this will significantly accelerate our growth.

Q: How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?

A: The solar industry is expected to grow significantly in the next five years. Ireland aims for 80 per cent of its electricity to come from renewable sources by 2030, which would double its 2020 production.

The Government is encouraging and supporting the growth of the solar industry and Ireland has set a target of 5.5GW of installed solar capacity by 2030.

Our goal is to be a top solar distributor in the market and generate a turnover of €100 million in Ireland by 2025. Additionally, we plan to expand our distribution network to include more than 10 countries.

Q: What are the big disruptive forces in your industry?

A: Solar is the disrupter in the energy market and new tech is making solar ever more attractive in the Irish market and further afield.

Government support towards solar, the challenges posed by the financial crisis, plus the flux in gas and electricity prices are changing the landscape today and opening up more opportunities for solar.

Q: What are you doing to disrupt, innovate and improve the products or services you offer?

A: We offer the latest technology for solar panels, inverters, and batteries. We do not deal with outdated technology. Our aim is to revolutionise the industry by providing innovative solutions that cater to the needs of our customers.

We work closely with installers, offering them warehousing, financial support, stock availability, and 24/7 technical assistance.

Q: Is AI impacting your business and industry?

A: Our website now features AI technology that enables end users to answer their specific and unique questions related to solar energy. The AI will provide detailed answers to educate users before they make a purchase from installers.

We are also planning to increase our use of Al algorithms to collect and analyse data on energy production, environmental conditions and system performance.

Nick Keegan, Mail Metrics

Nick Keegan is the co-founder and chief executive of Mail Metrics, which has developed a technology platform designed to assist financial services firms digitise their customer communication and engagement processes.

Its revenues grew from €1 million in 2019 to €20 million in 2022. It is projecting to double run rate revenues by year-end 2023. The company employs 110 people across Ireland, Britain and Poland.

Q: What vision/light bulb moment prompted you to start in business?

A: The business was initially founded based on a completely different idea. We were trying to build an app to consolidate customers’ online bills and statements into one place, to save them the hassle of logging into multiple online accounts.

That idea ultimately failed and, over time, with plenty of iterations along the way, we pivoted into what we do now.

Q: What is your business model and what makes your business unique?

A: We help financial services firms to digitise their customer communication and engagement processes. Typically, these companies print and mail a letter when they want to communicate with their customers, which often falls short of the demands of their digital native customers.

We have developed a speciality in helping financial services firms, often operating on old legacy systems, to provide a digital experience to their customers whilst removing legacy paper-based processes.

Q: What is your greatest business achievement to date?

A: Overcoming the failure of our initial business model and having the resilience and perseverance to not give up at that point. For our first three years in business we essentially had zero revenue, which was a tough place to be.

I’m most proud of the fact that my team and I pushed through that period and kept searching until we found a business model that worked.

Q: What was your “back-to-the-wall” moment and how did you overcome it?

A: Too many to list them all here but one in particular stands out. After the failure of our initial idea, we had no revenue coming in but we were burning cash quickly. We had to let the entire team go apart from one software developer.

Towards the end of year three, we were almost out of cash just before we landed our first customer. The founders had to take credit union loans to cover wages before the first customer invoice was paid.

From that point on, one customer led to another, and we were able to sustain and grow the business though healthy cash-flow.

Q: What moment/deal would you cite as the “game changer” or turning point for the company?

A: The decision to make our first acquisition was the turning point. I determined that to get the levels of growth we aspired to, we would need to supplement our organic growth by making acquisitions.

We began talking to potential targets in 2020 and ended up closing two deals in 2021, a month apart. This all happened during Covid lockdowns, so I signed the loan documents to fund the deals from my kitchen table.

This took a leap of faith but turned out to be a pivotal moment in our growth story and both acquisitions have gone from strength to strength.

Q: What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?

A: The best piece of advice I received in the early days was that life is too short to build software that nobody wants. I learned this the hard way.

To avoid this scenario, always validate your ideas and ideally have a paying customer lined up before you even start to build. It’s a simple concept but has saved us from a lot of wasted time and money since we adopted this approach.

Q: To what extent does your business trade internationally and what are your future plans/ambitions?

A: About 25 per cent of our sales come from outside Ireland. We’re very focused on increasing our export sales and are actively looking at new geographies and the potential to make acquisitions as a way to enter new markets.

Q: What is your growth funding path?

A: We raised a €700,000 pre-revenue seed funding round in 2014. We have bootstrapped the business from that point forward, reinvesting profits to fuel our growth. In recent years, we have used debt to facilitate strategic acquisitions. We have not taken on any additional equity since 2014.

Q: How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?

A: The post-Covid digital transformation boom is transforming our industry. We’re riding this wave and using it to our advantage. As more firms look to digitise their business processes, we are seeing an increase in demand for our solution.

Tom Keogh, Keoghs Crisps

Tom Keogh is the founder and managing director of Keoghs Crisps, which is based in Dublin and employs 150 people. Founded in 2011, Keoghs has grown to become one of Ireland’s most popular food brands, exporting to 20 countries.

Q: What vision/light bulb moment prompted you to start in business?

A: Between the years 2000 to 2010, potato consumption across the Irish population fell by almost 50 per cent. I knew that I had to urgently find markets for potatoes grown on our family farm.

Q: What is your business model and what makes your business unique?

A: We literally start by ploughing a field in the early spring and end when we place a bag of our crisps on shop shelves all over the world. Having control of so much of the supply model really does create real competitive advantage from a product quality, sustainability, and efficiency perspective.

Q: What was your “back-to-the-wall” moment and how did you overcome it?

A: There have been many, but one I will always remember is the time Superquinn was placed in receivership. Few people would have expected such a popular and established business to fail.

At the time, Superquinn accounted for about 65 per cent of our total turnover, so they were vital to our survival and their failure left us with considerable debt. It took us several years to recover from that one event.

Q: What moment/deal would you cite as the “game changer” or turning point for the company?

A: After our first year in business, the CEO of Tesco UK was in Ireland and happened to taste our crisps. I was contacted by his PA to say he thought they were the nicest he had ever tasted, and he wanted them across the UK stores.

We were offered the opportunity to supply almost every Tesco store in the UK that year for a St Patrick’s Day special event. It was a huge opportunity but I only had one tiny production line and five employees.

We worked day and night for almost a month to cook all the crisps and successfully supplied the order. I’ll never forget all the trucks leaving the farm bringing stock to the UK, it was incredible, and the sales value helped me to buy my second production line.

Q: To what extent does your business trade internationally and what are your future plans/ambitions?

A: We have built up a thriving international business, supplying to roughly 20 markets with about a quarter of our total volume. In some of our markets we are the best-selling potato ‘chip’ in the store.

We have ambitious plans to build on this success which will include dedicated country resources and the establishment of in-country sales offices in our strategic target markets.

Q: What is your growth funding path?

A: It’s very simple, we make it before we spend it. To date, we are fortunate that the business growth has been self-funded.

We have also received funding assistance from Enterprise Ireland on several expansion projects over the years. We continue to manage the growth of the business and all strategic opportunities with careful financial planning.

Q: How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?

A: We are just about to kick off a new five-year strategic growth plan for the business. This will see a renewed focus on overseas opportunities and an eventual move to a new green field site on the farm in 2026.

We can also see that our penetration in the Irish market is actually quite low, so there is still lots of room for us to grow here at home into the future.

Q: What are you doing to disrupt, innovate and improve the products or services you offer?

A: From clever new flavours like this summer’s ‘Teeling Whiskey’ and ‘BBQ’ right through to innovative and sustainable new uses of energy, equipment and even self-driving tractors.

Q: How is the current inflationary environment impacting your business? How do you expect things to unfold?

A: It’s been a rough ride. Firstly, we were hit with the large logistics cost increases during Covid. This resulted in several of our international markets falling into large margin deficits.

Then the Russian-Ukraine war and the cost of our second largest raw material – sunflower oil – literally trebled in price in a matter of days.

We adopted a wait-it-out strategy at home in Ireland, but we had to implement price increases into our international markets due to logistics.

Dr Andrew Woods, Catagen

Dr Andrew Woods is the founder of Catagen, which aims to clean and decarbonise the air. It provides a range of emissions tests for after-treatment systems to vehicle manufacturers.

It develops net zero technologies to further reduce emissions under the ClimaHtech brand, which is an acceleration system towards decarbonisation using advanced climate technologies.

Q: What vision/light bulb moment prompted you to start in business?

A: I didn’t have a light bulb moment – more a series of life events. I had the opportunity to work for a local company and met a wise man who opened my eyes to the impact business can make to people’s lives.

Through university, I experimented with sidekick businesses and knew I wanted to create a business. During my PhD for mechanical engineering, I invented a new technology for the automotive industry with my supervisor Roy.

I could see it had utility outside the R&D environment. We saw we could create revenue as it solved big automotive problems whilst also reducing environmental emissions. This led me to set up Catagen.

Q: What is your greatest business achievement to date?

A: Starting with a blank sheet of paper and no funds, and turning that into a leading innovative green tech company that partners with over 30 global original equipment manufacturers.

Q: To what extent does your business trade internationally and what are your future plans/ambitions?

A: All of our customers are global and we partner with over 30 of the world’s top automotive manufacturers and the industrial sector in our core business.

The demand for our new range of ClimaHtech technologies is extremely strong, with a pipeline of future partners already growing and collaborative projects to be announced later in 2023. The company also plans to open an office in the US in late 2023 or early 2024.

Q: What is your growth funding path?

A: The first monies into the Catagen bank account from a balance of -£20, was from a customer for £76,600 – that was an amazing day. We won a number of Intertrade Ireland seed corn grants and received some angel funding to develop technology.

I hit on a winning business model in 2017 that drove significant customer acquisition and laid the groundwork for the development of a predictive revenue model to support growth.

In 2022, the company received five funding awards from the UK government to support the development of net-zero technologies which opened the company up to a $9 trillion (€8.27 trillion) decarbonisation market.

In 2023, the trajectory is accelerating with circa 500 per cent growth in core business revenues with another step increase predicted in 2024 and 2025 and a multilayered sales pipeline developing for ClimaHtech across several market segments/geographies.

Q: How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?

A: Our current trajectory predicts three of the new ClimaHtech technologies will be fully commercialised – hydrogen compression, biohydrogen and e-fuel.

Catagen will partner other global companies to manufacture and scale these technologies to clean and decarbonise the air.

Q: What are the big disruptive forces in your industry?

A: Climate change and the decarbonisation of mobility and heavy industry, which provide enormous opportunities for Catagen with the development of its range of ClimaHtech technologies.

Unfortunately, when you see what is happening between Russia and Ukraine, energy security and infrastructure have become big disruptive forces globally but again provide opportunity for Catagen in the development of new energy vectors.

Q: Is AI impacting your business and industry?

A: Catagen already has some AI built into the control systems of our core technologies and one of the reasons our partners come back to us again and again is due to the high quality data produced.

As a company we have and are embracing AI everywhere we can and see market potential in this space where AI meets green tech.

Q: How is the current inflationary environment impacting your business? How do you expect things to unfold?

A: We play the board in front of us and adapt to and anticipate change. Inflation offers market opportunities and cost challenges – we are robust to such changes in our cost base due to our IP advantage.

Q: What is the single most important piece of advice you would offer to a less experienced entrepreneur?

A: Gain early customers and partners to validate your idea and then drive predictable revenue. Learn what it means to really sell. Build deep, meaningful relationships with your partners. Be transparent and human.