Local knowledge business US

Local knowledge can help you to set up business in the US

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No matter what your sector is, if you are boosting the local economy and creating jobs, your success will be encouraged with state-based support available to those who set up business in the US.

Every state in the union has an Economic Development Office (EDO), agency or authority, charged with attracting business to the locality and making setting up as painless as possible.

The umbrella organisation for these state-based development agencies is SelectUSA, which has personnel working in most US embassies, including Dublin.

SelectUSA investment specialists can help you to find useful data and information on the overall American economy, industry sector overviews, and relevant federal resources. To find out what makes establishing in one state different from setting up in another, you will need to access each state’s economic development agency. You can find listings for them here.

At the recent E3 ‘Entrepreneurship Export Exchange’ conference, hosted in Dublin by Enterprise Ireland and Global Situation Room, representatives from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, the Mississippi Development Authority and Enterprise Florida outlined why their state makes a good US location for Irish-owned start-ups.

Siobhan Masterson, Head of Corporate Affairs at IBEC, explained that the state-based organisations are a bit like the IDA. She estimates that, in the last year or so, representatives from eleven US states have visited the country to pitch for Irish business.

While each agency can, of course, be expected to represent its state’s interests, compelling arguments were made at the conference for considering alternatives to headline locations, such as San Francisco, Miami, Boston, and New York.

 

Setting up business in Iowa

Kaitlyn McKay, a business development manager with the State of Iowa’s Europe Office in Frankfurt am Main, advised, “Take a look at real estate prices in San Francisco or Boston. Take a look at average rates of pay in these locations. They are really expensive.

“If you are a small tech company, you would probably be better off setting up elsewhere – somewhere where there is an industry cluster for your sector but where labour is more competitively priced, and where finding and retaining staff isn’t as much of an issue.”

In Iowa’s case, the state has a strong IT sector. It is also a hub for plant, animal and human biosciences. The state capital, Des Moines, is home to America’s second-highest concentration of financial service companies. There are currently 433 foreign-owned companies operating in Iowa, including Kerry Group and CRH. Among the incentive programs companies can avail of are: a high-quality jobs programme, which offers tax benefits and loans to businesses moving to the state or expanding their facilities, a tax credit if you increase Iowa employments by 10%, and funding for new jobs training.

 

Setting up business in Mississippi

Also speaking at the E3 conference, James Miller of the Mississippi Development Authority argued that the Magnolia State was an ideal business location for new businesses for a number of reasons. Mississippi enjoys America’s lowest cost of living and ranks in America’s top ten for the most tax friendly states for business, states with the most competitive labour costs, lowest utility charges, and fastest for authorising business permits. Mississippi is also a noted hub for advanced manufacturing and has a works fund that that supports training for new jobs.

 

Supports for setting up available at state, city and country level

Not only are business supports available at state level in the US, support agencies also operate at city and country level. In some locations, business support organisations operate across state boundaries, such as Select Greater Philadelphia, a public-private partnership promoting inward investment across 11 counties in three different states.

In addition to providing access to funding and tax credits, support organisations can provide facts and figures about local market conditions. Some keep a register of vacant commercial properties and brown-field sites, others can refer you to private business networks that will help you to source accommodation, business partners, and potential customers.

“These economic development organisations aren’t just interested in big firms who will bring hundreds of jobs to their localities,” says Seán Davis, Enterprise Ireland’s regional manager for North America. “They will want to have a conversation with you if you are an SME looking to open a sub-office with two or three employees. It’s well worth giving them a phone call and 20 minutes of your time to find out what they have to offer and how they might help you.”

Masterson adds that, as well as public bodies, it’s worth tapping into the knowledge of private networks in the US, such as Chambers of Commerce, trade associations, and professional bodies. “Private organisations will tell you things that public bodies can’t necessarily reveal.

“Before deciding on a location, look at the online editions of local newspapers – they will also give you a different picture than the one you might receive from state-run economic development organisations.”

Before choosing a location in America: Do your homework and find out where you can get help.

Learn more about the Enterprise Ireland global network and and accessing the US market on our dedicated US Market page.

How Modular Automation transformed into a substantial international exporter

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Over the past five years, Modular Automation, a 32 year-old Shannon-based company that delivers advanced technological solutions for the manufacturing industry, has grown its business significantly thanks to export success.

The company delivers automation solutions for advanced manufacturers, including custom solutions and build-to-print machines for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Stryker and Medtronic.

Working with these companies’ manufacturing sites in Ireland provided Modular Automation with invaluable opportunities to sell into their sister sites overseas, attendees heard at Competing for the Future, a breakfast briefing organised by Enterprise Ireland as part of its International Markets Week programme.

 

International markets are now hugely important for Modular Automation

Leveraging multinational clients here and following them overseas enabled the company to grow revenues and double staff to 150 people, CEO Vivian Farrell noted.

International markets are now “hugely important in terms of reaching our ambitions for growth,” said Farrell.

Three years ago, the company opened a US office, in Florida. The idea was not just to service the sister sites of clients in Ireland but to also serve as a base from which to develop new customers.  “That is our strategy for growth and it is working for us, but it’s only achievable if we do a good job for the multinationals in Ireland, and critical to that is R&D and innovation,” she said.

“We’re investing heavily in R&D and innovation in Ireland and we see that as a catalyst for growth, in particular in the US.”

Much of Modular Automation’s research and development comes as a result of co-investment with customers here. “The machines that we develop for our customers haven’t existed before, so it’s primarily custom automation. It’s new and it’s risky, and it involves a lot of R&D. But when we crack it, very often there’s a market for that in their sister sites,” she said.

 

Winning business across the US

While Modular Automation already had a significant customer base in Florida when it chose to locate there, the company has succeeded in winning business right across the US, from New York to the West Coast.

“We opened the office in 2015 but started planning it in 2014. The background to it was that there was a lot of discussion around Made in America at the time. We felt it was a risk that was going to make it more difficult for our customers – and potential customers – in the US to do business with us, unless we had a base there. We felt we needed to commit investment to the US, get boots on the ground, and show we were there for the long haul and willing to invest in the US market.”

Setting up the new office was challenging. “We were naive at the start in thinking that after maybe 12 months we’d have secured our first new deal. In fact it took double that amount of time. That was one of the key learnings we made,” she said.

It was an expensive time. “You’ve got a lot of set up costs and hiring in the US is expensive as well. There were a lot of lessons in the first two years of set up but thankfully it is starting to pay off now. We’ve secured some nice deals and are hoping to grow that into the future.”

She advises anyone thinking of following suit to “put it down on paper. There’s nothing like getting your ambition down on paper and seeing it through.”

 

Make the most of Enterprise Ireland supports

Make the most of Enterprise Ireland’s supports. “There are 650 clients here at this event alone,” she said. “We find it a fantastic resource, being able to tap into businesses that have already made the move is hugely helpful, talking to people who have done something similar to what we were planning.”

The US is an easy place to do business but it can also be overwhelming because of its sheer size, she said. “Getting on the ground and engaging with the Enterprise Ireland representatives who are out there and who know the landscape is hugely helpful.” Staff from Modular Automation also attended Enterprise Ireland trade missions, which helped make initial introductions to new customers.

“Tap into that network, talk to other businesses, talk to the Enterprise Ireland staff, get on the ground,” she said. “Be brave and take the leap.”

 

For more information on entering the North American market visit our dedicated US Markets page.

NIVA – simplifying the Common Agricultural Policy claims process

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“Horizon 2020 is an ideal funding stream as it enables cross-border collaboration and ensures that technology developed will be fit for purpose on a pan European basis.”

David Hearne, Walton Institute, NIVA Horizon 2020 project

Key Takeouts:

  • Walton Institute (formerly TSSG), part of the Waterford Institute of Technology, is involved in a project that aims to develop and implement a range of digital innovations to improve the administration of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
  • The NIVA project has received €10.5m in funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.
  • Walton Institute is focused on developing a geo-tagged photo app to help simplify the CAP claims process for farmers and paying agencies.

H2020 Case Study: NIVA

    The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) supports farmers, safeguards agri-food supplies and encourages sustainable management of land resources. Administering and controlling payments to farmers under CAP is done through the integrated administration and control system (IACS), which is the subject of the Horizon 2020 project, NIVA (New IACS Vision in Action).

    The three-year project, led by The Netherlands’ Wageningen University & Research and involving 27 partners, aims to modernise IACS by delivering a suite of digital solutions, e-tools and good practices for e-governance. These will ultimately produce more transparent, simpler processes that will reduce the administrative burden on farmers, paying agencies and other stakeholders.

    In Ireland, a multi-disciplinary team made up of The Walton Institute (formerly TSSG) – a centre of excellence for ICT research and innovation – the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT), Teagasc – the Agriculture and Food Development Authority – and led by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is tasked with developing a geo-tagged photo app.

    The app will be used to resolve claim queries by enabling farmers to send digital photos of their land parcels directly to the paying agency, which will reduce the need for inspections and accelerate claim processing.

    “Our app is one of nine innovations in this project with different countries working on each,” explains David Hearne of Walton Institute’s Creative Design Unit. “Other areas include decision support systems, machine data and a solution for simplifying payments, but in the end they will all come together in one ecosystem, which will be used by paying agencies across Europe.”

    Although it won’t be the first geo-tagged photo app on the market, Hearne explains that what sets this one apart is the user-centric, multi-actor design.

    “We take the approach that we don’t know what the users want; we can’t decide what’s best for a farmer in the west of Ireland who needs to send a photo to the Dept of Agriculture. So the project started by gathering data about the needs of all stakeholders, not just in Ireland but across Europe. It’s an iterative process, so when we’d developed the first version of the app, it was tested by users across Europe and their feedback informed the next iteration and so on.

    “The fact that farmers and other stakeholders have been involved from the beginning gives them a sense of ownership, and that should result in a higher adoption rate at the end,” adds Hearne.

     

    Horizon benefits  

    Horizon 2020 has provided €10.5m in funding for the project, but beyond the financial investment the programme offers multiple other benefits.

    “Horizon 2020 is an ideal funding stream as it enables cross-border collaboration and ensures that technology developed will be fit for purpose on a pan European basis,” says Hearne

    “Currently, our app is being tested across nine EU countries with over 200 users, and other solutions being developed under NIVA will likewise be tested across different countries, so there’s a lot of interaction, integration and learning across the project.”

    Monthly work package meetings and bi-monthly project meetings, all virtual at the minute, keep the project on course and ensure that innovation is shared across the partners.

    On a personal and professional level, Hearne believes his involvement in Horizon 2020 projects has been highly advantageous.

    “It’s great to focus on these large projects with so many moving parts. You learn so much, for example, the various technologies used in different countries, how they are implemented and what the issues are.

    Hearne confirms “The opportunity to collaborate with researchers in other countries is also invaluable. You build up a huge contact base, which gives you the opportunity to collaborate on more projects.”

    To others who have not yet dipped their toe in the Horizon water, Hearne simply says “Do it”.

    “It’s a great opportunity to be involved in projects that can actually change people’s lives. With NIVA we’re reducing the burden on farmers, so we’re making a difference. My advice would be to focus on something that you’re really passionate about.”

    His other advice is to seek out the right partners at the start and use the supports that are available to help with putting the proposal together.

    “I was involved in writing sections of the NIVA proposal. It was a new experience for me because I come from a very technical background, but I had the support of people in WIT to guide me in how to approach it. And the more you do it the easier it gets.

    “We’re also in close contact with Enterprise Ireland, who have a real interest in the project, and we know that they’re there to help us if we need it.”

    For advice or further information about applying for Horizon 2020 support please contact HorizonSupport@enterprise-ireland.com or consult www.horizoneurope.ie

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    Female entrepreneurs show leadership credentials as they take it global

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    Increasing numbers of women are making the decision to turn great ideas into great businesses.

    As aspiring female entrepreneurs find the pathway to success, they are also supporting and inspiring each other along the way, through mentoring and knowledge sharing initiatives such as Going for Growth and ACORNS. This support plays a vital role in fostering entrepreneurship for women in business, from the initial idea through to becoming an internationally trading company.

     

    A sprinkling of fairy magic

    It was as Ireland was emerging from the depths of the economic crash that Niamh Sherwin Barry turned what had been mostly a bit of fun into one of Ireland’s most iconic and successful toy exporting companies.

    The Irish Fairy Door Company has sold more than 750,000 products worldwide but it started as a chat between friends at the kitchen table one evening in 2013.

    Co-founder, Niamh says: “We had these little shapes that looked like doors, and we called them fairy doors, myself and my friend Aoife. We were just discussing what our fairies were doing and laughing about it and that got us and our husbands thinking that we could definitely make money out of this.

    “Our Local Enterprise Office in South Dublin was just incredible. We got €78,000 in funding and it was totally business changing. We used it for developing the product, the website, and for marketing on social media. We had been sitting around the kitchen table making the doors ourselves but now we were able to take on carpenters to make the doors.

    “The LEO also gave us lots of mentoring and support getting us ready to export, they were absolutely brilliant – and it continued when we transitioned to Enterprise Ireland.

    “We’ve received €450,00 in funding so far – a third from Enterprise Ireland, a third from the bank and a third from a private investor – but there has also been mentoring and support for trade shows, particularly in the US and Canada, which are big markets for us.”

    The Irish Fairy Door Company recently signed a “game-changing” global animation deal to bring the characters from its fairy stories to Wild Brain, a digital network with 50 million subscribers and a portfolio that includes brands such as Fireman Sam, Curious George, Shopkins and Ben 10.

    Niamh says: “This product, this little piece of wood takes the child into their own imagination and has the potential and the capacity to stay in that child’s memory forever – and I don’t think there’s that much out there that would have that power.”

    Niamh’s journey with the Irish Fairy Door Company has instilled in Niamh a belief that other aspiring female entrepreneurs can also turn their great ideas into great businesses.

    “There is nothing stronger than one woman helping another – I really do feel that. The networks for women run by the LEOs and Enterprise Ireland are tremendous for providing support and belief that you can achieve your goals.”

     

    Female entrepreneurs build confidence and support

    Anne Reilly was a full-time mother and a part-time lecturer in Irish payroll and employment law when, in 2005, she founded her own company providing payroll services and information to local companies in Co Louth.

    Going global wasn’t on Anne’s radar until she received a phone call from an Australian company asking if Paycheck Plus could process payroll for their employees in Ireland.

    Anne realised that her company had the makings of something much bigger. She says: “I knew that if a company in Australia could find us and trust us to run their payroll here in Ireland, then other companies could too. But I didn’t really know how to go about getting into an international market or even a parochial market at that stage and I didn’t have a whole lot of business acumen in terms of entrepreneurship.

    “I was dropping the kids to school one morning and heard that Louth Local Enterprise Office was having an open day and I decided that I would go there. That was a big deal for me, I was very nervous about going in to meet people in an entity like that because I wasn’t sure whether I’d be judged.

    “They gave me five sessions with their business mentor, who explained to me how to go about setting and achieving objectives for myself and the business. That had a huge impact on me and gave me a lot of confidence.”

    Today, Paycheck Plus has 17 full-time employees providing payroll services in Ireland and the UK for companies from 18 different countries. Last year, the company was named In-Country Payroll Provider of the Year at the Global Payroll Awards.

    “I really do believe that without the help of Louth LEO in giving me that confidence and making me feel less alone, that would never have happened. It was a huge gateway into where we ended up going,” Anne says

    Anne is now very involved in supporting female entrepreneurship through Going for Growth, an initiative for female entrepreneurs based on shared learning through roundtable sessions hosted by a female lead who has developed a large business. She is also a voluntary leader and special adviser with ACORNS, which promotes female entrepreneurship and job creation in rural Ireland.

    “I think many women find it easier to ask other women for help than men do to ask other men for help,” she says. “I also find women very willing to share and that’s hugely instrumental in professional and personal development because the synergy of shared knowledge is so strong.”

     

    Going global from Gorey

    Vanessa Tierney leveraged 15 years of experience in recruitment for tech companies when she founded the smart-working matching platform Abodoo. It connects companies with remote working professionals globally through an intuitive technology system that also reduces unconscious bias in the hiring process.

    Based in the Wexford LEO-supported Hatch Lab in Gorey, Abodoo received a priming grant in October 2017 but moved quickly into Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-up Unit. The company already counts Shopify, Vodafone, and Apple as clients.

    Vanessa says: “Abodoo is like a dating website for remote workers. Our system will feed companies and recruitment agencies with great matches but it’s all automated – there’s no human element to Abodoo.

    “We’re matching on skills. You don’t know whether the person is male or a female and you don’t know how old they are – just if they have the right soft skills, hard skills, experience, salary expectations, and connectivity. Only after you invite the match into the recruitment process do employers find out if they’re a man or a woman, if they’re 50 or 25.”

    Between angel investment and Enterprise Ireland and LEO support, Abodoo has raised more than €800,000 in funding and is currently conducting a first round of venture capital funding to raise between $6 million and $10 million before launching in the US early next year.

    Vanessa says, “We’ve had more than 20,000 people and a hundred companies register on Abodoo and we’ve had hundreds of matches. The majority have been in Ireland with about 20% in England. However, there are 212 million skilled people unemployed globally for whom the traditional workplace doesn’t fit their needs. The VC funding is going to allow us to reach those people, get our matchings to a really superior level, and really grow internationally.”

    Eliminating bias is a key element of Abodoo’s mission and Vanessa is conscious that there is still some way to go to level the playing field for female entrepreneurs.

    “There’s been such an upward trend in support by Enterprise Ireland to female entrepreneurs but if you look at the space that I’m in – tech – representation remains low. I’m not meeting many women, and just 3% of venture capital money globally goes to female entrepreneurs.”

    Enterprise Ireland is working with the LEOs to develop a new strategy for female entrepreneurship, which will address some of these issues. Sheelagh Daly, Entrepreneurship Manager (Regions) for Enterprise Ireland, believes that the strong links between the two organisations and an understanding of the vital role both play will be key to doing so successfully.

    “There are still areas which pose more challenges for women who are setting up businesses,” says Daly, who is a former chair of the Network of Local Enterprise Offices and was the driving force behind the inaugural National Women’s Enterprise Day in 2007. “The new strategy will be focusing on confidence building, capability building, networking, and access to finance.”

    For Vanessa, it is vital that women continue to support, learn, and drive each other forward.

    “Women thrive when we can connect with another woman who’s been there done it,” she says. “I proactively reached out to successful Irish women who have gone global, and they have been phenomenally supportive and that is what has given me the confidence to go for it.”

    SpeakingNGI – Shaping the internet of the future

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    “We are delighted and proud to have contributed to the successful building of the EU’s flagship Next Generation Internet – An Open Internet Initiative (NGI)”.

    TSSG’s Strategic EU Liaison Manager and coordinator of the SpeakNGI.eu project, James Clarke

    Key Takeouts:

    • TSSG (Telecommunications Software & Systems Group), an internationally recognised centre of excellence for ICT research and innovation at the Waterford Institute of Technology, led the influential SpeakNGI.eu project, which was a Pathfinder Project for the European Commission’s large-scale, flagship Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative.
    • The project was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation ICT work programme 2018-2020 (WP2018-20).
    • SpeakNGI.eu’s NGI Consultation Platform and Knowledge Base were among numerous contributing projects helping to shape the internet of the future into an Internet of humans that responds to people’s fundamental needs, including trust, security and inclusion, and reflects the values and the norms that we enjoy in Europe.

    Case Study: SpeakingNGI

    Evolving the internet from its current problem-strewn form into a human-centric, secure, inclusive space that supports people’s needs and addresses global sustainability challenges is a European Commission (EC) priority.  It’s an ambitious goal, now embodied in the EC’s flagship Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative.

    SpeakNGI.eu, a partnership between TSSG and Trust-IT Services Ltd, was one of three Horizon 2020-funded Pathfinder Projects that aimed to identify research topics, enable dynamic consultation, and shape the programme for the NGI initiative. For more information on the initiative, please consult the NGI Brochure.

    Begun in 2017 and running for just 18 months, SpeakNGI.eu addressed the dynamic consultation aspect of the pathfinder programme, by building a platform with mechanisms for engagement with the NGI stakeholder communities, creating a knowledge base and establishing a 16-strong European Champions Panel of thought-leaders.

    “These pathfinder projects were important cogs in a bigger wheel and a very important step towards the establishment of the EU’s flagship NGI initiative and directly contributing to the selection of priority NGI topics for the open calls being funded by the larger scaled NGI Research and Innovation Action projects,” explains James Clarke, SpeakNGI.eu project coordinator.

    “We were considering what the Internet will look like 10 years from now, dealing with mounting concerns about security and privacy, and anticipating radically new functionalities. Our platform enabled organisations and individuals to share their ideas and we collated the information and published it in a readable format, essentially building the topics that would eventually be funded through cascade funded open calls by the NGI RIAs.”

     

    From data gathering to experimentation

    Following the successful conclusion of the Pathfinder Projects, the EC launched Research and Innovation Actions (RIA) as the next step towards its vision of creating the ‘internet of humans’.

    In the first tranche of the NGI RIAs, they funded open-call NGI projects based on the topics the pathfinders identified, such as privacy and trust technologies, decentralized data governance, and better search and discovery technologies.

    On the back of SpeakNGI.eu’s success, Clarke led a five-partner team that secured an NGI RIA project covering EU – US cooperation. The project, NGIAtlantic.eu, which runs until June 2022, is funding EU-based researchers and innovators to carry out NGI-related experiments in collaboration with US research teams.

    “We have a €3.5 million budget, 80% of which is dedicated for open calls funding third-party projects. We select, fund and monitor the projects, which are building on research results and moving to the experimentation stage on EU and US experimental platforms,” says Clarke.

    “The vision of a new initiative, launched by the EC in 2016, is now at the stage of funding innovators through RIAs with an overall budget of €75 million over a three-year period. We are delighted and proud to have been part of this long-term strategic action and to have contributed to the successful building of the EU’s flagship NGI initiative.”

    Building on experience

    The two NGI projects are not Clarke’s first foray into the world of EU funding and he has a wealth of experience to call upon.

    “I’ve been involved in EU-funded projects back to the early-nineties so this wasn’t a first for me. For the most part, the experience has been good and challenging. Where it hasn’t been so good, it can be down to teaming up with the wrong partners, perhaps with not enough foresight into the strategy and team building experiences when working in the proposal stages. With experience, I’ve learned how to pick the right partners every time, which is very important,” says Clarke.

    Clarke says “There is certainly a lot of work involved in putting a proposal together for projects. I found the Enterprise Ireland Coordinator Grant to be a huge support in helping prepare a successful Horizon proposal.”

    It has enabled me to bring in great mentors to help with not just the reviewing process, but also to generate content, where needed. And if I couldn’t find someone suitable, who was also available, in Ireland, I could go further into Europe to get the right person.

    “Before Covid-19, I would meet the mentor and spend a couple of days working with them on the proposal and I found that much more effective than relying on feedback from written drafts. Since I started taking that approach, I’ve been winning more projects.”

    Although he admits that being a coordinator on a Horizon 2020 project can be sometimes difficult, Clarke firmly believes the experience has many rewards.

    “Working with like-minded researchers and innovators from around Europe has been a big thrill for me. Coordinating a Horizon 2020 project also frequently offers the opportunity to be invited to participate in more projects, events and follow-up activities. The more you succeed, the more invites you get. Overall, it’s very fulfilling and enjoyable.”

    For advice or further information about applying for Horizon 2020 support please contact HorizonSupport@enterprise-ireland.com or consult www.horizoneurope.ie

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    Relationship building key for Irish medtech suppliers breaking into the US

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    While Ireland’s reputation for health innovation is admired across the world, breaking into new markets is rarely easy. The US hospital supply chain is one of the most potentially lucrative for Irish companies but also one of the most difficult for outsiders to penetrate.

    Earlier this year, Enterprise Ireland’s life sciences team hosted Navigating the US Hospital Supply Chain, aiming to help Irish exporters to become more familiar with the intricacies of the sector and increase their chances of securing wins.

    One of the day’s most persistent themes was the need within the US hospital supply chain for suppliers that adopt a collaborative approach.

    David Walsh, Director of Supply Chain Administration at Boston’s Children Hospital, was a key speaker at the event. In his presentation and the panel discussion that followed, he returned repeatedly to the subject of open collaboration.

    “We’re a team. We all work together. We want to work with you if there’s a benefit on both sides,” he told an audience of medtech professionals. “We can learn from you and you can learn from us.”

    Relationship-building a key competitive advantage for Irish medtech suppliers

    The reputation Irish suppliers have developed for relationship-building is a key competitive advantage that serves this need well. Meditec Medical has applied the approach over the course of its relationship with Boston Children’s Hospital, thanks to an introduction facilitated by Enterprise Ireland.

    Alan Sullivan, Managing Director of Meditec, advised exporters, “Before going into the US market, you need to be ready.

    “We got our product tested on the east coast of America for compliance with fire regulation. Because we were already looking for our FDA approval, we had these wheels in motion.”

    Building successful business relationships requires consistent contact. While technology can bridge geographic gaps in day-to-day communications, a lasting partnership requires frequent presence in the US, including availability for stakeholder meetings. Working with a supplier located on a different continent may be considered less favourably than local options, so perceptions of risk must be mitigated in the eyes of the buyer.

    Walsh advised on the importance of presenting your ability to deal with the inevitable issues experienced during trials and roll-outs, remotely. Exporters should be prepared to answer the question: “It’s a good quality product, but what if we have problems?”

    Irish medtech businesses can’t afford to ignore the open invitation to dialogue when entering the US market but it can be intimidating for those who are new to it.

    Unlike the relatively centralised system familiar in Ireland, purchasing decisions in the US are made either by large hospitals and networks, or by group purchasing organisations (GPOs) comprised of several smaller hospitals and health centres that pool resources in order to gain more clout in the market.

    Charlie Miceli, VP Network Chief Supply Chain Officer at the University of Vermont Health Network, explained, “Getting in at group level can reap huge rewards. There are six hospitals in the University of Vermont Health Network.”

    From an outsider’s perspective, it can also make for a confusing landscape, however, with the question of where to go, and who to speak to at the first point of contact, challenging for new entrants.

    In what can already be a long sales cycle, getting in with the right person at the right stage is crucial. The best way to avoid spending time on what supply chain calls the ‘circular wheel’ is to ask the question of how to engage.

    “Try to understand what the roles are,” said Dave. “Ask the question and we’ll help you to find right person to talk to at the right stage.”

    Enterprise Ireland can also help with the process. In the Boston office, we have successfully connected a number of Irish medtech suppliers with key stakeholders in the US hospital supply chain. We encourage the companies we support to reach out and see how we can assist with their approach.

    This article was originally published in the Sunday Independent.

    Why Portwest views the Eurozone as its local market

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    Once a small family business in Mayo, Portwest has become the world’s fastest growing work wear company. Here’s how.

    The saying, ‘don’t let perfect be the enemy of good’ means that if you wait for everything to be perfect, you’ll never progress. For businesses, the maxim could well be adapted to ‘don’t let success in the home market be the enemy of export growth’.

    It was an issue touched on by Harry Hughes, CEO of Mayo-based safety clothing and equipment company Portwest. He was speaking at Competing for the Future, a breakfast briefing panel discussion organised by Enterprise Ireland as part of International Markets Week.

    During the discussion, Hughes suggested to a packed auditorium in the RDS that success in the home market can inadvertently stymie ambition overseas.

    “When you go abroad to foreign markets, you are starting at ground zero, which is not an easy place to be,” said Hughes.

    It takes a successful business out of its comfort zone. “It just takes time and you have to stay with it,” he said.

    Hughes, who is the current EY Entrepreneur of the Year, helped grow what was a small family business with a turnover of €100,000 in 1978 into the €205 million a year business employing 3000 staff it is today.

     

    How Portwest broke Europe

    The UK was Portwest’s first export market and remains an important one for the company today, accounting for 40% of its business. Its success there may, however, have discouraged it from entering new markets.

    “We were probably slow learners in the beginning, in that we were 25 years selling in Britain and had reached maturity in that market before, 15 years ago, we started looking into Europe,” said Hughes.

    It has taken a “one step at a time” approach to new markets ever since, starting with the Netherlands and then France. Today, Portwest sells into 120 countries worldwide.

    “We started in the Dutch market and after that it was one brick at a time in Europe. We now have sales people in every country in Europe. We have eight people in Germany which we have found to be the most difficult to crack but obviously the prize is the biggest, at 82 million people.”

    Every country has its own nuances, he said, and it’s important to understand the competition in each. “In our case, we would have 50 competitors right across Europe. Nobody is standing at doors waiting for us. But if you are persistent, you will get there in the end.”

    The key is to innovate, he said. “We have to look at the local styling. The Germans expect a better product for a lower price, so we’ve had to adapt to that. There is no reason why any Irish company cannot succeed as long as they keep saying ‘What are the issues?’ and keep resolving them.”

    Mistakes are inevitable. In Portwest’s case, a key hire made in Ireland and relocated to Europe turned out not to be the best strategy. “Now we employ French people in France, Germans in Germany and so on. The boots on the ground need to be local,” said Hughes.

    Today the company, which sells globally, views the Eurozone as its local market. “We have the same currency, the same laws, there are no borders.”

    Brexit uncertainties make looking further than the UK more important than ever. Portwest has responded to the UK’s imminent departure from the EU by shifting some of its warehouse activities.

    “There are only two things we give away – warehousing and sales. Everything else we do in Mayo,” he said.

    The company recently acquired 140,000 sq ft of warehousing in Poland, reducing its warehousing space in Britain. “We take the attitude of ‘plan for the worst’,” said Hughes. “So rather than have one major distribution centre servicing the EU we will have two.”

    Regardless of the ultimate outcome of Brexit, such a move makes good business sense, he said. “We’ve been growing at around 25% a year and currently have nine international warehouses, but from a Brexit point of view, we only had one distribution centre in Europe, so that will now go to two.”

    Language and culture are not barriers so much as issues to be resolved, he said. “You need to see (the Eurozone) as a local market and get out there and invest,” he said. “Sales are going to cost you initially but once you make that initial investment, once you get a taste for selling into one country in Europe, you’ll find it as easy as selling in Ireland – and then you will keep going.”

    Burgeoning middle class in China creates opportunities along New Silk Road

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    “Made in China” are three words that became ubiquitous in global manufacturing. Being a factory for the world powered China’s economic rise over the past four decades to become the New Silk Road.

    The most populous nation on earth has gone from producing less than 3% of global manufacturing output by value in 1990 to almost a quarter last year. Companies large and small throughout the world have products that are made in China, including 80% of the world’s air-conditioners, 70% of its mobile phones, and 60% of its shoes.

     

    How China became the ‘New Silk Road’

    Exporting is key to China’s success but it has also transformed the domestic economy into one that is increasingly consumer-led.

    More than 400 million of China’s 1.4 billion population are now considered middle class. Consumer spending accounts for more than 60% of economic growth in China and, according to a study by consulting firm McKinsey, 76% of China’s urban population will be considered middle class by 2022, compared to just 4% in 2000.

    Dr. Linda Yueh, a fellow in economics at Oxford University, where she directs the China Growth Centre, says that this burgeoning middle class presents huge opportunities for Irish exporters seeking to sell into what is forecast to become the world’s largest economy as early as 2020.

    “China is now a maturing economy and has reached the stage where future growth is going to rely on domestic demand,” Dr. Yueh says. “The cities are already full of rich people and therein lie opportunities for Irish exporters, particularly given that many local companies there haven’t yet faced global competition.

    “You can be a massive firm in China and never have faced global competition because in China you have a domestic market of 1.4 billion people.”

    The 1980s is when China began to reform and to upgrade its industries, moving out of central planning and becoming more market oriented. This ‘open doors’ policy towards global trade transformed the country and it continues to advance today in the form of the ‘New Silk Road’ routes of the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

    The BRI development strategy involves infrastructure development and investments that will connect cities across 68 countries and including 65% of the world’s population across Asia, Europe and Africa. The plan is to open trade corridors and develop a unified market which creates jobs and opportunities for people and businesses along the routes. Crucially for Irish exporters, it will make it easier for businesses to reach China’s growing middle classes.

     

    Irish ambition in China

    An increasing number of Irish companies partnering with Enterprise Ireland have set their sights on taking advantage of this vast and rapidly expanding market.

    In 2017, Enterprise Ireland client exports to Greater China grew by 9.7% to record levels of €1.03 billion, with China now accounting for 52% of client exports to the Asia Pacific region. Enterprise Ireland has set ambitious targets to grow exports to Greater China by 40% to €1.44 billion by 2020.

    Dr. Yueh says that demand for high-quality innovative, imported products will continue to grow strongly in China for the foreseeable future.

    “A third of the world lived in abject poverty in 1990. Today we are at a historic point, where just one in 10 live in extreme poverty. More than one billion people have been lifted out of poverty since 1990 and most of that is due to China,” she says.

    “Hundreds of millions of people have entered the middle class and on current growth rates the projections are that in a couple of years, we’ll have 3.2 billion people who are middle class around the world. That’s somebody earning between $10-$100 dollars per day.

    “By 2030, and this point may be hit even sooner given how strong emerging economies growth is, especially in Asia, for the first time ever more than half of the world will be middle class – 4.9 billion out of an estimated 8.5 billion people at that point.

    “At the moment, more than half of the middle class are in the West but by 2030, two-thirds of the middle class will be in Asia.

    “This means there will be a huge amount of opportunities that we haven’t seen before. The United States powered the world economy following World War II in terms of growth with about a quarter of a million people. With Asia, we are talking about five billion people who are going to be middle class. Some of these countries, including China, may not become rich on average but the changes this is bringing into the world economy are significant.

    “We’re all going to be impacted by these tremendous opportunities as a new global middle class in China and indeed the rest of Asia.”

     

    Contact Enterprise Ireland’s local office for information and support about identifying and developing market opportunities in China.

    Future Transport

    Ireland: the go-to destination for future transport

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    Transport is changing and Ireland’s automotive suppliers are in the driving seat. Companies that think globally, invest in the growth of their companies and innovate continuously are most likely to succeed, particularly in the fast-changing automotive and mobility space.

    Irish companies are doing all three, delegates at Connected Autonomous Vehicles and Mobility heard recently.

    Organised by Enterprise Ireland, the event brought leaders from the global automotive industry to Dublin. These included Kelly Kay, Executive Vice President of the Toyota Research Institute; Rahul Vijay, tech deal-maker at Uber, and Amer Akhtar, managing partner at Foothill Ventures and an advisor to Chinese electric vehicle (EV) company NIO.

    Their audience included top Irish automotive and mobility engineering companies, including CitySwifter, which uses big data and predictive analytics to optimise bus networks; Cubic Telecom, a global connectivity specialist for the automotive sector, and micro-location semiconductor solutions developer Decawave.

    Taoglas, a developer of antenna solutions; iCabbi, a dispatch specialist and Fleet, Ireland’s first peer-to-peer car hire platform, were represented too.

    Key executives from vehicle tracking and fleet management company Transpoco; Xtract, a developer of a unique software solution for the auto-insurance and OEM after-sales markets, and satellite communications solutions Arralis, a maker of smart antennae, were also present.

    The attendee list alone demonstrated the breadth of capacity that already exists in the transport space, including AdaptiveMobile, a world leader in mobile network security protecting 2.1 billion subscribers worldwide.

    It also included Arup, who helps transport authorities and city planners to optimise transport networks, as well as connected transport IoT solutions provider Davra Networks. The event attracted both innovative start-ups and established manufacturers such as Combilift, whose materials handling solutions are used worldwide.

     

    Commited to innovation

    What all have in common is an adherence to the three key indicators of sustained success – a determination to internationalise, to invest in the growth of their company, and a constant commitment to innovation –  said Tom Kelly, head of innovation and competitiveness at Enterprise Ireland.

    “The people in this room, all of them, meet those objectives. They are businesses for whom innovation is the critical component of their thinking, and that is the best recipe for success,” he said.

    Their commitment to these three pillars – internationalise, invest, innovate – is what drives all Enterprise Ireland-supported companies to success. “Over the last seven years you can see confident, upward progress in terms of the key metrics we look at, in terms of the sales output of our companies,” he said.

    This includes exports of more than €22 billion by companies supported by Enterprise Ireland, a figure on track to hit €26 billion by the end of 2020, he said.

    The automotive sector has a particular resonance here, Kelly noted, with Ford having been one of the country’s biggest employers, in addition to the influence of the presence of a number of UK subsidiaries up until the 1980s.

    “But we have a greater history too, in the importance of our subsuppliers who today do business all over the world, with all of the leading automotive sector companies,” he said.

    “The Nissans, the Volvos, the Jaguar Landrovers, the Fords, the Bentleys, the McLarens, the Nascars, the Teslas – they are all there, all companies doing business with Irish companies. This isn’t something that stands still either, with Irish companies simply supplying a part. Our companies are continuing to evolve, to change and respond to the needs of those companies.”

    “It’s a fact that comes back to the investments they make, to the capability they are putting into their company, to the capacity they build and the innovation they commit to. That is characteristic of the companies sitting here today and it is a guarantor of their future success and of their future relevance to their customers.”

     

    Transport is changing fast

    The automotive world is changing fast, with the machine element becoming less complex but the electronics and software components infinitely more so. It’s a development to which Ireland is well placed to contribute.

    “What we have in Ireland are companies that have been supplying more traditional component parts and also the emergence of companies that are providing the kind of sensor technology and software that enables autonomous operation of vehicles,” said Kelly.

    Companies supported by Enterprise Ireland currently export some €130 million direct to the automotive sector, and another €30 million through automotive software applications. “So we have significant scale of activity already, a platform to build on that gives us confidence as we go forward.”

    A major part of Enterprise Ireland’s role is to drive the innovation agenda, to support companies with grant assistance and incentivise them to do more on this front and to take on greater challenges, he said. “But probably the most understated and single most important thing we can do is make connections, whether in the marketplace with suppliers and customers, or with companies.”

    Building connectivity, partnerships and long-term alliances yields success, he said, a fact Enterprise Ireland is facilitating through the creation of an industry cluster around the vehicles of the future. “It is very much about recognising that the vehicle of the future is going to be connected, autonomous and shared and electric, it will have all of those attributes, and there is still going to be a traditional element too.”

    Enterprise Ireland’s aim is for Ireland to be the “go-to” place for the supply of components and technologies of relevance to the future automotive sector, he said. The launch of the €500 million Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund is a clear indication of the Irish government’s commitment to realising this ambition.

    “The people in this room come from different areas, with deep levels of knowledge in sensor technology sitting beside traditional components suppliers, engineering companies and software expertise. It’s a clear expression of the capability that exists in this country.”

     

    DeviceAtlas makes sense of the world’s mobile traffic

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    Irish start-up DeviceAtlas emerged from humble beginnings. It began life with four employees and a borrowed internet router, working out of a one-room office above a travel agent on Dublin’s Dawson Street.

    The company may have started small but it had a big vision – and a steely belief that the world was going mobile. It may seem obvious now but back in the pre-iPhone days of 2006 nobody could tell how far mobile technology would go, and how fast the device population would grow.

    DeviceAtlas knew what was coming. The company was formed as part of the dotMobi domain initiative, with a mission to take the pain out of device diversity. It was a tough sell in the beginning, not least because most companies had yet to experience that pain.

    “That was probably the biggest bump we faced in those early days, a lack of belief that the technology would evolve to this point,” says DeviceAtlas CTO, Ronan Cremin. “Companies just didn’t believe that they’d need this sort of help.”

    Becoming one of the world’s foremost providers of mobile device data

    As the technology exploded, and devices began to proliferate, the vision started to make sense. “Of course, all the things people said would never happen have now happened, but the lack of faith was a big obstacle,” says Cremin. “We trusted in the vision though, we had complete belief in what we were doing and that made sure we never got knocked off our path.”

    Today, DeviceAtlas is one of the world’s foremost providers of mobile device data. The company supplies detailed information about the nature and capabilities of connected devices – as of today, they cover more than 50,000 different devices – to give clients deep insights into their mobile traffic and usage patterns.

    The company accumulates data from a global network of websites and apps that monitor traffic and identify devices that have not been seen before: some 50 to 60 new devices are launched every single day. It is exactly the scenario the company envisaged a decade ago, when they were knocking on doors.

    “All connected devices have different characteristics and different capabilities so for any company trying to keep track of them all, it’s a headache – it’s messy,” says Martin Clancy, the company’s marketing chief. “Our mission is to recognise what each device is and what it can do, and in that way bring order to chaos for our clients.”

    Growth has been smooth and steady over the past decade, but the company still acknowledges the foundational role played by Enterprise Ireland, which stepped in to provide funding for early-stage R&D  recruitment. “Thanks to Enterprise Ireland, we were able to hire the right people who could build the technology quickly, which was critical to our launch plan,” says Ronan Cremin.

    “The funding was the obvious one but Enterprise Ireland also gave us lots of advice and guidance that was really helpful,” he says. “For example, when we were trying to break into the Chinese market they added heft to a lot of introductory meetings as well as giving us tips about adapting to the local culture. Small but invaluable things that made a difference.”

    DeviceAtlas clients include more than twenty Fortune 100 companies

    These days, DeviceAtlas needs little introduction. The company counts nearly a quarter of the Fortune 100 among its client roster – with companies such as Adobe, Amazon, AOL/Oath, Appnexus to take just the start of the alphabet – and estimates that its technology is used by “most of” the Fortune 1000 via its OEM customers. Incredibly, some 1 in 3 of all digital ads are underpinned by DeviceAtlas.

    From four people, the DeviceAtlas team has grown to more than 50 – a rising total that includes an impressive 18 nationalities so far – serving customers in 56 countries worldwide. And as ever more devices populate the landscape – not just smartphones but game consoles, TVs, watches, speakers, anything connected – there appear to be no limits to what the future holds.

    “The direction of our industry is clear – everything’s getting smaller,” says Ronan Cremin. “Mobile technology is sinking into the woodwork, if you like, it’s becoming invisible. One of these days, you might open your box of Cornflakes and find a free mobile connected device in with the cereal!

    “I know it sounds far-fetched and we’ll have people telling us ‘It can’t be done’, just the same as they did when we were starting out,” he goes on. “But in this business you can’t rule anything out. There’s a line in the movie Jurassic Park that I always remember: life finds a way. Well, technology will find a way. And probably sooner than you think.”

    Languages Connect logo

    The importance of multilingualism

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    The drive for new markets shines a light on the importance of multilingualism. Julie Sinnamon, CEO Enterprise Ireland outlines why language matters.

    Ireland’s small, open economy depends heavily on being able to trade internationally. The global dominance of the English language has worked to our advantage but with Irish companies looking to export into even more diverse markets, the need to acquire more languages has never been more important.

    Recognising the cultural value of communicating in the buyer’s local language and developing a workforce with foreign language expertise can improve relationships and increase efficiency when entering new markets.

    Learn how Enterprise Ireland can support your business with the Market Discovery Fund

     

    Nuritas uses cutting-edge technology to find new ways of fighting disease

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    “Nuritas is addressing the world’s growing healthcare needs through bioactive peptide discovery, fuelled by its proprietary AI platform that operates with industry-leading speed and accuracy.”

    Nuritas CEO, Emmet Browne

    Key Takeouts:

    • Nuritas is harnessing the power of AI to discover peptide-based therapies for global unmet medical needs with unprecendented speed and success rates.
    • One of the company’s products is currently undergoing human clinical trials to test its ability to prevent the onset of diabetes.
    • Founded by Dr. Nora Khaldi, the company has attracted numerous multinational partners including BASF and Nestlé.

    Case Study: Nuritas

    Nuritas, a company supported by Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Ups (HPSU) unit, harnesses the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to mine the data within food sources to identify and unlock bioactive peptides with the potential to prevent and treat disease. The company’s proprietary AI-based drug discovery platform operates with industry-leading speed and accuracy to address the world’s growing healthcare needs.

    Traditional drug discovery (within the pharmaceutical or consumer health industries) is becoming ever more costly with the chances of success decreasing yearly. Alternatively, Nuritas begins its process by identifying a target condition that currently lacks safe and effective treatment options. Nuritas works best in a truly collaborative partnership with companies that have a clearly identified medical need and a need to rapidly accelerate the identification of a novel treatment or preventative action.

    CEO Emmet Browne explains, “Our platform is rooted in three key steps: target, predict and unlock. We start by targeting an unmet medical need, often identifying conditions that may currently be deemed undruggable. Our proprietary AI platform intelligently mines the dormant peptides that exist in safe, plant-based food sources. These possess extraordinary potential to elicit a positive clinical effect on the targeted condition. Our in-house wet lab then unlocks the peptides from the source protein and fully characterises the activity profile of the peptide to validate its activity. This data is fed back into the AI platform, making it smarter and continually improving the already unparalleled accuracy and success rate of our peptide discovery platform.”

     

    Stopping disease in its tracks

    One of the company’s most exciting developments is the discovery of a peptide for the prevention of diabetes. The peptide has the potential to maintain blood sugar levels and prevent the onset of the condition. The drug-candidate is currently undergoing clinical trials to evaluate safety and efficacy in pre-diabetes.

    CFO Greg Stafford said, “Diabetes is a massive global epidemic, with more than 400 million people suffering from the condition. We have the potential to make an extraordinary impact on the incidence of diabetes as Nuritas has identified and unlocked bioactive peptides with the potential to prevent this condition. We are honoured to have received a multimillion euro Horizon 2020 grant from the European Commission to support the development and commercialization of the product.”

    Inspiring leader

    Nora Khaldi, Ph.D. is the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Nuritas. Dr. Khaldi founded the company in 2014, with a vision to apply her background in mathematics, computational biology, microbiology and bioinformatics to help solve some of the greatest challenges in human health. Since launching in 2014, Nuritas has grown rapidly and received multiple awards including the Innovation Award at the Forbes Reinventing America Summit in 2015, recognising the global impact that Nuritas’s technology will have on the future of food and health. In 2017, Dr. Khaldi was named Woman of the Decade in Business and Leadership at the Women Economic Forum (WEF) European Union Event and received the Rising Star prize from the Tech Excellence Awards.

    At the core of Nuritas’s objectives is engagement in truly collaborative partnerships. The company combines the strength of a partner’s disease space expertise with Nuritas’s strength in peptide discovery, leading to phenomenal success in the development of effective therapies. Among the company’s ongoing partnerships are BASF, the world’s largest chemical company, and Nestlé, the world’s largest player in the food and beverage industry.

     

    “We provide meaningful value to the organisations we work with due to the nature of our approach. We are able to identify and develop bioactive peptides for any target or indication based on the needs of our partners in the pharmaceutical, consumer healthcare and linked industries. The companies we partner with have global reach, possessing the ability to get our products to the consumers and patients who need them most across the globe.” said Browne.

     

    Invaluable guidance from Enterprise Ireland

    Enterprise Ireland supported Nuritas in its Seed and Series A funding rounds. Browne said, “Enterprise Ireland’s investment was not just limited to their financial support. The organisation cares about our business and is committed to the advancement of our technologies. Since Enterprise Ireland’s involvement, they have been part of our progress as our AI-based peptide discovery platform now operates with a 66%+ success rate and is continuing to improve.”

    Mr. Stafford said, “We are delighted to have the support of a globally respected organisation. Enterprise Ireland’s involvement is a testament to the promise of our AI-based discovery platform and the organisation’s involvement has been instrumental as we advance our technology.”

    The company has just opened an office in Cambridge in the UK and has plans to open one in an East Coast US location in the coming months. Browne commented, “There are key centres for us around the world where we are already deeply active. These would include the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific, specifically Japan and China. We look forward to continued and accelerated growth as we expand our reach around the globe.”

     

    Reaching globally from Ireland

    Nuritas currently has a wet lab in UCD and an office near Pearse Station in Dublin city centre; but, the company is combining the two in a new facility on Dawson St. Browne said, “Combining our lab and offices into a single facility in the heart of Dublin is a very deliberate decision. The synergy of our AI platform and in-house wet lab is what makes Nuritas’s approach to drug discovery unique. Being able to join the multidisciplinary teams in the same physical space will only add to the success and accomplishments of our highly talented scientists. In addition, with space for 150 employees, we now have the space to grow our team. A space in the city center will allow for a workplace that is as vibrant and stimulating as the Nuritas team.”

    Stafford added, “Companies such as Nuritas are a testament to an environment that provides for growth and innovation. Ireland at present is a hub for companies with ground-breaking technologies, and we intend to remain proudly rooted in Ireland as we emerge as a serious contributor on a global level in discovering life-changing solutions for the world’s growing healthcare needs.”

     

    Learn more about Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation supports here.