Web licence to print money?

OPTIMISM WAS on the menu in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin on Tuesday morning as Raglan Capital hosted a business breakfast.

Kerry entrepreneur Jerry Kennelly – who bagged a $135 million (€101 million) windfall from the sale of Stockbyte to Getty Images in 2006 – gave an interesting presentation on his new venture, Tweak.com. This, he says, will be the world’s first self-service design company.

It will allow you to create and design your own newsletters, advertisements, posters and business cards via their website at a fraction of the traditional cost.

You just send the design off to the printer for production and... hey presto.

“It’ll be a highly disruptive business in the design sector,” Kennelly told delegates. “Something that cost $1,000 to do less than 12 months ago will cost you about $100 by January.

“This will really empower small and medium-sized businesses around the world.”

Kennelly has his eye on the $130 billion print business in the United States. “Faster, cheaper, better, that’s what we plan to do.”

Irishman Dylan McGrath, chairman of Gruupy.com, talked of the explosion in gaming and the healthy profit margins that investors can enjoy.

McGrath acknowledged that the Irish market would be “tougher” in the coming years but said it was a great place to do business. He should know, having already created and sold a couple.

Speaking to me after the conference, UK private equity guru Jon Moulton said Calyx, a managed services company he rescued from bankruptcy earlier, was already “back in profit”.

“We have taken a lot of costs out of the business,” he said. “It had far too many sites.”

Moulton’s Better Capital group has a couple of deals in the pipeline, one with an Irish connection, but he said they were unlikely to close before Christmas.