TECHNOLOGY AWARD:The ITLG/ Irish TimesInnovation award being presented next week gives recognition to the Irish technology firm that in the view of judges is most likely to succeed on a global platform, writes JOHN COLLINS
THE SECOND annual ITLG/ Irish TimesInnovation award will be presented at Stanford University in Silicon Valley on April 14th next. The award recognises the technology company, that in the view of judges from the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ILTG) and The Irish Times, is most likely to succeed on the global stage.
Last year's winner of the inaugural award was Changing Worlds, the personalisation software company which was acquired by Nasdaq-quoted Amdocs later in 2008 for €46.2 million.
This year a second award for renewable energy will be presented. It will recognise the company from the green energy sector that has the most innovative technology that is likely to break into the mainstream.
This year's shortlist of seven firms is drawn up from those who applied to pitch to financiers at the ITLG's Silicon Valley Comes to Ireland event which was held in Trinity College last November.
Twelve firms participated in a Dragons' Den-style event where they pitched to representatives of US venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Intel Capital and Venrock, as well as investment banks Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.
Founded in October 2007, the ITLG is an independent group of senior technology executives in Silicon Valley who are either Irish or Irish-American. Members include John Hartnett, CEO of G24i, John Gilmore, CEO of Sling Media, Conrad Burke, CEO of Innovalight, Rory McInerney, vice-president, Intel, and Barry O'Sullivan, Senior Vice President at Cisco.
LINCOR SOLUTIONS LTD (lincor.com)
Founded:2003
HQ:Dublin
Chief executive:Richard Cooke
Investors:Private
Customers:Santry Sports Surgery Clinic, University College London Hospitals, Holy Name Hospital, New Jersey; Geoffroy St Hilaire Hospital, Paris, France
Summary:A provider of integrated bedside point-of-care computing solutions which are used by medical staff in hospitals for access to clinical information systems, and by patients for digital entertainment and education services
LINCOR SOLUTIONS,the healthcare technology provider, is no stranger to awards, having scooped the Deloitte Fast 50 award last year for being the fastest growing Irish technology firm in the previous five years. Lincor achieved an aggregate growth rate in revenues of 3,145 per cent in that period compared to an average for all companies who entered the competition of 460 per cent.
Lincor was founded in 2003, making it a "five-year overnight success", jokes Richard Cooke. It has developed a touchscreen system designed for the patient point-of-care - usually bed-side - that is easy to use and provides a set of services such as internet protocol television (IPTV), movies on demand, internet access and telephone. Staff, using a secure smart card, can use the same terminal to access patient information systems.
"There is a growing demand from hospitals to move to electronic patient records," explains Cooke. "But how do they access them when they are with the patient?"
One option is to give each doctor and nurse a wireless tablet PC or a "computer on wheels" that they push on their rounds. Lincor solves the problem by providing access to the workstation beside the patient. Cooke claims this provides a number of advantages, including an income stream for the hospital, and entertainment and information for the patient. Unlike the situation with a tablet or computer on wheels, there is no risk of infection being spread with the device.
"The hardware we use is specially designed for purpose so there is no fan - it uses the arm it is connected to for heat dissipation and the processor runs at a lower power level," explains Cooke.
Lincor has installed systems in hospitals in France, the US, Britain, Italy, Malta and Ireland, and has built relationships with system integrators such as IBM, BT and KPN. The firm has concentrated its efforts on Europe because, as Cooke explains, patients here are used to the idea of paying for these services.
OPENHYDRO (openhydro.com)
Founded:2004
HQ:Dublin
Chief executive:James Ives
Investors:Emera Inc, a leading Canadian energy and services group. OpenHydro has raised over €50 million in funding since 2005 for the commercial development of its turbines
Customers:EDF, Nova Scotia Power, Alderney Renewable Energy Summary: Designing and manufacturing marine turbines for generating renewable energy from tidal streams
LAST SUMMEROpenHydro became the first energy firm to generate tidal power and sup- ply it to the British national grid. After 18 months of testing OpenHydro's 250kW Open- Centre Turbine, installed at the European Ma- rine Energy Centre (EMEC) off Orkney in Scotland, it began to supply electricity to the grid.
According to chief financial officer Peter Corcoran, the firm is targeting tidal energy because it is the only renewable power source that is predictable, it has a high energy density (800 times that of wind) and there is no visual or noise impact from the turbines, which are below sea level.
“This is a global resource but no one is com- mercially exploiting it yet,” says Corcoran who says the global market for tidal electricity could be worth €16 million annually.
The company was founded in 2004 when the founders, Donal O’Flynn and Brendan Gil- more, purchased the worldwide rights to the Open-Centre Turbine, a sub-sea turbine that harnesses the power of waves.
The key to the technology is simplicity, Corcoran says.
“There is only one moving part; if it is deployed 50 metres down, you want to make sure it performs durably,” he says.
The turbine uses the principle of a permanent magnet generator - magnets on the rotor blades are spun past coils in the outer ring by the power of the tide. The turbine does not need a gearbox, which is the primary point of failure for wind tur- bines and the large open centre, means ma- rine life can pass through unhindered. The de- sign means there is no need for oil, grease or other lubricating fluids so there is no risk of pollution.
Although OpenHydro has its head office in Dublin, Corcoran describes Greenore, Co Louth, where technical design is carried out and the turbines are built, as the “heart of the business”.
The test bed at EMEC has enabled the firm to master the task of sub-sea installation. OpenHydro has developed valuable knowledge about everything from how to connect the turbines to sub-sea cable to the most efficient way to deploy them at a new site.
FIRECOMMS LTD (firecomms.com)
Founded:2001
HQ:Cork
Chief executive:Declan O'Mahoney
Investors:SwissCom, Alps Electric, GP Bullhound Sidecar, and Firecomms' existing venture capital investors Atlantic Bridge, ACT Venture Finance and Enterprise Ireland
Customers:Alps Electric, SwissCom, APAC Opto Electronics, STMicroelectronics
Summary:Semiconductor firm developing high-speed optical components, including Optolock, which drive IPTV home networks and in-car multimedia entertainment systems
FIRECOMMS IScommercial proof that the hundreds of millions of euro being invested in research and development by agencies such as Science Foundation Ireland can pay off. It was born out of research at the National Microelectronics Research Centre, which has been merged into the Tyndall National Institute in Cork.
Based on eight years of research work at the NMRC, Firecomms developed technology to send data using visible light over plastic optical fibre (POF) as opposed to the use of infra-red with traditional glass- based fibre optics. Many sectors are looking to POF as a low-cost, flexible and rugged alternative to glass, and Firecomms has primarily sold into the automotive and telecoms markets.
The financial difficulties the global motor industry is struggling with means Firecomms is focusing its efforts on supporting the rollout of internet protocol television (IPTV) services, which are delivered over broadband connections. At a recent industry event in London, STMicroelectronics, one of Europe's largest semiconductor firms, showed off a reference design for a home gateway which embedded Firecomms technology.
"Residential gateways are set to become the new modem and will replace the standard broadband box," explains Declan O'Mahoney. "The next generation will be more complex, high performance boxes, which will be connected to four or five TVs around the house."
O'Mahoney says the consensus from industry analysts is that there will be around 100 million subscribers for IPTV by the end of 2012. Firecomms recently closed a $5 million funding round which was led by Swisscom and also included automotive electronics maker Alps Electric.
The Swiss state telco is using Firecomms' OptoLock Fast Ethernet optical transceiver to enable customers to self install the IPTV set top box.
CUSTOMERMINDS LTD (customerminds.com/ie)
Founded:2007
HQ:Dublin
Chief executive:Mike McMahon
Investors:Founders Jonny Parkes and Mike McMahon, BES fundraising, Enterprise Ireland
Customers:Tayto, FAI, Champion Sports, Sqeez, Woodie's DIY, IRFU
Summary:Provides an online, self-service platform which manages all client data, marketing channels and reporting
The founders of CustomerMinds have a proven track record building up technology firms. The pair worked together at Electric Paper, the e-learning company which enjoyed a period of sustained growth during the late 1990s and early years of this decade, before its sale to London and Dublin-listed ThirdForce for €15.5 mil- lion in 2003.
“Electric Paper was all about making e-learning very easy,” says McMahon, who acts as chief executive, while Parkes is chairman. “We wanted to apply the same thinking to something else.”
The promise is that by bringing all marketing data together in one place, it can be managed much more efficiently. “Marketers are notorious for having their data in multiple spreadsheets and other documents,” says McMahon. CustomerMinds also offers tools to work with the data – not just the standard demographic slic- ing and dicing, but what McMahon calls “behavioural segmentation tools” which show how customers reacted to previous campaigns.
The core market for CustomerMinds is marketing professionals in small to medium enterprises, which it defines as companies with less than 500 employees, but McMahon says it is also being used by marketing de- partments in larger organisations such as banks.
The firm is on track to have revenues of €1.5 million this year with a focus on developing the British market, where it established a presence at the start of the year. Towards the end of the year the company will look at the US.
