Transformational Change in 13 weeks – Accelerator Teams raising €5million & creating 40 jobs this year
23 April 2018: Ireland’s first Security Accelerator welcomed Investors, VCs and Seasoned Entrepreneurs to Cork for Demo Day where the Accelerator Teams pitched for investment. The Accelerator teams are looking to employ up to 40 people before the end of this year and raise over €5 million in investment. The Accelerator is supported by key funding partners Kernel Capital and Trend Micro.
Following 13 weeks of intensive mentoring and in-depth workshops with a focus on the team, technology, business model, market opportunity and investor readiness, the Teams are currently seeking investment in their businesses. World class mentors like Julian Costley, Investor & Serial Entrepreneur; Eamonn Carey, TechStars; Joe O’Sullivan, Ophir (formerly Apple) and Ronan Murphy, Smarttech have challenged and advised the teams sharing their experience.
The teams are developing world class technology solutions in Artificial Intelligence, BlockChain and CyberSecurity. Each of these areas feature in Gartner’s top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018 and help form ‘The Intelligent Digital Mesh’ which looks at the entwining of people, devices, content and services.*
Key to this Accelerator is the focus on team, the product proposition and the transformational process and change that has transpired in some of the teams. Each of the teams have brought product to market during the 13 weeks, with one team, Altada, already securing international Enterprise clients.
Winner of the Most Investible Company, Allan Beechinor, founder & CEO Altada said “The Accelerator was the turning point for Altada. We knew we had something but the Accelerator helped us focus our product offering, refine our investor proposition and ultimately transform the business in 13 weeks.”
Also participating in the Accelerator were Johannes Ahlmann, CTO and John O’Reilly, CEO of iLen; Roman Sologub, CEO, Oleh Derevianko Executive Chairman, GuardYoo from Ukraine and Callum Donnelly, CEO & Ebad Ali, CTO ParrotScribe.
Commenting on the Accelerator programme, Ger Goold, COO & Partner at Kernel Capital, said: “Cork is developing a reputation for Ireland’s growing Security Cluster. This Accelerator is a unique opportunity for startups to tap into the experience and resources of the strong network of Cork’s multinationals, such as Trend Micro, helping these startups grow, succeed, and in turn contribute to the Cluster.”
William Dalton, Director EMEA IS & Corporate Technology, Trend Micro added: “It has been really interesting to watch these teams grow in the 13 week Accelerator and to watch the transformational change taking place. The technologies involved are crucial in today’s connected world and there is no doubt there are some real rising stars in the group, watch this space!”
This world-class accelerator programme, which began in January 2018, focussed on early stage disruptive companies in the wider security industry including, Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IOT), Blockchain, Health & Bioinformatics, Fintech, Regtech, & Logistics. The second programme is now open for applications via isa.corkbic.com.
Partners for the International Security Accelerator are Kernel Capital, Bank of Ireland, Trend Micro, CorkBIC and Cork City Council.
-ENDS-
Notes to editor:
*Gartner’s top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2018 looks at the entwining of people, devices, content and services as the intelligent digital mesh; Intelligent: How AI is seeping into virtually every technology and with a defined, well-scoped focus can allow more dynamic, flexible and potentially autonomous systems; Digital: Blending the virtual and real worlds to create an immersive digitally enhanced and connected environment and Mesh: The connections between an expanding set of people, business, devices, content and services to deliver digital outcomes. (www.gartner.com)
About CorkBIC
CorkBIC is a private-sector led organisation, specifically set up to identify and build knowledge intensive companies based on promising technology and capable innovative people. It plays a hands-on role helping entrepreneurs navigate the minefield of raising finance, sorting out business propositions, arranging agreements with shareholders and investors, and, perhaps most important of all, finding customers. Over the past 25+ years CorkBIC has worked with nearly 500 startups and is part of a network of 200+ BICs throughout Europe, called The European Business & Innovation Centre Network (EBN). CorkBIC is also a very active member of EBAN - The European Trade Association for Business Angels, Seed Funds and Early Stage Market Players.
About Kernel
Kernel Capital is the independent manager of The Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Funds, one of the largest and most active sources of equity finance for technology companies on the Island of Ireland. Kernel leverage their extensive network to enable portfolio companies recruit the highest calibre people, to break into new international markets and to generate revenues of scale. Kernel Capital is the only investment firm with venture capital Funds dedicated to each jurisdiction on the Island. Investors include strategic partner Bank of Ireland; Enterprise Ireland; Invest NI; Galway University Foundation; The University of Limerick Foundation; The New York State Common Retirement Fund; and undisclosed Family Offices. Kernel Capital Funds are industry performance leaders, having delivered Gross IRRs in excess of 20% per annum. Consistently delivering strong financial returns for investors Kernel have led more than 20 substantial trade sales to NASDAQ, NYSE and LSE listed corporations.
The Accelerator Programme is designed to provide funding and support to internationally focussed early stage companies in the Republic of Ireland enabling an acceleration of their growth and development. This Accelerator Programme has the potential to provide support to up to 14 early stage companies based out of Cork region from 2017 to 2019. The Bank of Ireland Seed and Early stage Equity Fund has committed €300,000 of funding to this Accelerator Programme.
About Trend Micro
155 million endpoints. 500,000+ companies worldwide. One security software company. For nearly 30 years, Trend Micro’s unwavering vision has been to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Security is our entire focus, and it shows. This single-minded passion has inspired our innovations that keep up with the bad guys despite a changing IT landscape, riskier user behaviour, and constantly evolving threats.
The depth of our experience remains unmatched. From the endpoint to the network to the cloud, we’ve got you covered with a connected threat defence recognized by analysts, customers, and industry gurus of all kinds. Trend Micro is quoted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has over 5700 employees worldwide and annual revenue of over $1.2bn.
