Tony McEnroe, chief executive of SiriusXT, a spin-out company from UCD, has been named as Enterprise Ireland's high potential start-up founder of the year.
Mr McEnroe was presented with the inaugural award at a ceremony in Dublin on Wednesday evening.
SiriusXT has developed and built a bench-top, Soft X-Ray Microscope (SXT100) that is capable of generating high-resolution 3D images of the internal structure of whole biological cells.
Such images can reveal, in unprecedented detail, the inner workings of drugs and disease on a cellular scale and enable scientists to track how drugs and disease affect specific cells.
The SXT100, the first commercial lab-scale SXT microscope of its kind, is built on soft x-ray source technology and has been exclusively licensed by the company.
SiriusXT, a spin-out from UCD’s school of physics, last year secured €3 million in a Horizon 2020 funding round.
€15,000 prize
The firm was one of nine start-up companies to be selected for the inaugural Award whereby each of the companies Liz Fulham of SalesOptimize and Eoin O’Broin of Solar AdTek were named as runners-up on the night.
The other nominees included Immersive VR Education; Hub Controls; Clubstohire. com; Future Ticketing; Feedpods and TVadSync.
As the overall winner, SiriusXT received a prize valued at €15,000 provided by Grant Thornton to further support the development of the company.
Incorporated in late 2015, SiriusXT was co-founded by Dr Kenneth Fahy, Dr Fergal O'Reilly and Dr Paul Sheridan. The company claimed the title of "best early stage company in Ireland" in the InterTrade Ireland Seedcorn competition that same year.
Mr McEnroe is a former EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist from his time as managing director of Cork-based Farran Technology.
