Enterprise Ireland holds its Start-up Investor Day today, where hundreds of start-ups get to meet with other entrepreneurs and potential investors.
John O'Dea, the head of High Potential Start-Ups at Enterprise Ireland, the event is an opportunity for young companies to find out what kind of appetite there is for their products amongst the investment class. "Funding is always an issue for start-ups, because start-ups aren't bankable," he said. "They're always looking for risk capital and that's the purpose for our session today - it's about connecting startups with investors."
Money aside, Mr O'Dea said that start-ups can also struggle to find talent - and so attracting the right people in a competitive environment like Ireland can be quite a challenge. One high-potential start-up that is in the market for new talent is Shaw Academy, which recently announced plans to add 40 people to its Irish staff - having only hired 60 a short time ago. The company specialises in live online courses and has been in operation for around four years, starting up in the depths of Ireland's recession.
As much of a challenge as this was, founder Adrian Murphy said it helped weather the business too. "The banks weren't lending so getting access to funds was a problem, but we were able to grow organically without any loans or debts," he said. He also said that getting access to new markets has been a problem, including being able to go to places like Asia, Africa and the US.
Mr Murphy said the company has also been lucky in being able to both keep the fundamentals of the business on an even keel while also growing its customer base at a rapid pace - which is often a difficult balance to strike for start-ups. "It's obviously something we're very focused on, but we're very committed to the live education space which is very different to our competitors," he said. "What that means is we have a much higher interaction with our students, we get a lot more referrals and we've a lot more partners that want to work with us."
Enterprise Ireland predicts that its current batch of 105 high-potential start-ups will create more than 1,500 jobs over the next three years - but it will not be an easy path. One issue in the sector at present is the falling amount of seed capital available to young companies, with figures from the Irish Venture Capital Association showing a significant fall in the resource pool in 2015. Mr O'Dea says that these things are cyclical, and he expects the figure to pick up again later this year.
He also says that Enterprise Ireland is keen to continue its work in assisting new and interesting businesses. "One big push over the past couple of years has been getting more female entrepreneurs," he said. "We're seeing more younger people coming through, a lot more in the Internet of Things, and we're seeing more mobile, of course. Projects are getting easier to fund, the barriers are coming down all the time so it's a great time to start a business."
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MORNING BRIEFS - Asian markets have had another bad day of trading, with the Nikkei in Tokyo falling by more than 2.3% overnight. That comes on top of the more-than 5% decline seen yesterday, with a stronger yen also negatively affecting exporting firms there. Markets in China remain closed to mark the Lunar New Year and are not set to reopen until Monday.
*** Oil and gas exploration firm Tullow Oil has reported a loss of $1 billion for 2015 on the back of low oil prices. The firm said its revenues had fallen by 27% on 2014, while write-offs and impairment charges also hit its bottom line. However the company, which has operations in a number of African countries and exploration facilities elsewhere, said it had adjusted well to cheap oil and would this year focus on cutting costs and beginning production at its second largest project in Ghana.
*** Dutch brewing giant Heineken has announced a 25% rise in profits for 2015, on the back of higher sales and favourable exchange rates. The company made a full-year profit of almost €1.9 billion, compared with over €1.5 billion in 2014. Heineken is one of the biggest brewers of beer in the world, and recently entered the cider market in Ireland through its Orchard Thieves brand.
*** The Irish arm of the 30% Club holds its second annual conference in Dublin's Science Gallery today. The group, which aims to achieve a better gender balance in businesses, was established in 2014 and has the support of CEOs and chairpersons from 120 companies.
*** A Chinese investment fund has offered $1.2 billion for the Opera web browser. China's Golden Brick Silk Road investment fund made the offer to Norway's Opera Software, which has been unanimously recommended. The Opera browser is the fifth most used in the world, behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple's Safari.
