NEWSLINES: CORK-BASED Nomos Software has raised €500,000 in investment, and has appointed Iona Technologies co-founder and former chief executive Dr Chris Horn as a non-executive director.
Half the funding was provided by the Bank of Ireland Seed and Early Stage Equity Fund, which is managed by Kernel Capital, with Enterprise Ireland providing matching funding.
Separately, Polecat, the online intelligence firm founded by former Microsoft UK executives James Lawn and Bronwyn Kunhardt, has raised €850,000 from a syndicate that includes the AIB Seed Capital Fund, co-managed by Enterprise Equity, Enterprise Ireland and existing private backers.
Both the AIB and Bank of Ireland funds were established as part of the deal around the Government’s recapitalisation of the two banks.
Founded in 2007 by former Motorola executives Tricia Balfe and David Garry, Nomos provides software testing tools, primarily to the financial sector.
These tools allow organisations to check the validity of their business data. Ms Balfe gives the example of financial traders who need to be sure a trade contains all necessary data, not just to complete the transaction but to fulfil regulatory requirements.
Nomos sells its software to companies to allow them “build their own software rules” but also has a software-as-a-service offering for specific applications.
Ms Balfe said that similar to Iona Technologies, Nomos is implementing a standard from the Object Management Group (OMG). Iona’s initial success was based on having one of the first commercial implementations of the Corba standard.
Dr Horn said Nomos is “demonstrating thought leadership in the world of enterprise software”.
Polecat, with offices in Dublin, London and San Francisco, has developed a business intelligence tool called MeaningMine which enables companies to search online and social media data to answer questions relevant to its business. Customers include BP, Microsoft, Shell, HSBC and Sony.
The new investment will lead to the creation of 30 jobs in Ireland over the next three years.
