Cantillon: Are Irish techies lacking global ambition?

It is hard to know just what to make of the news that more than 300 shareholders and executives at Irish technology companies have become millionaires over the past 15 years from selling their businesses.

The figure, which comes from a survey by Dublin-based corporate advisory group Pegasus Capital is – on the face of it – indicative of a healthy entrepreneurial culture. The further finding that almost half of the deals happened in the past five years can be seen as indicating that some sort of positive feedback loop is in place. From this perspective it is an endorsement of the various agencies involved in fostering these companies, from the lowly county enterprise boards all the way up to the late stage venture capital funds.

But it also raises the question why do Irish technology companies seem to want to be acquired rather than acquire? For all of the achievements of the past 15 years, no Irish technology company has emerged to equal the likes of CRH, Smurfit or Kerry on the international stage. All of these companies grew from their Irish base through international acquisition. Unlike the recent swathe of technology companies, they and their peers chose to raise money via the stockmarkets to fund their ambitions.

It is hard to believe that the entrepreneurs behind the 215 technology companies sold since 2000 lacked the ambition to build an international company. Many of them were well down that road when they sold.

The difference perhaps lies in the fact that many of these tech companies were backed by venture capital funds focused on an exit and there was no shortage of buyers prepared to pay huge prices. Would Michael Smurfit have said no if somebody had offered him 20 or 30 times his earnings for his Irish packaging business in the 1980s?