19 Aug 2024
Entrepreneur Experience Alumni Graphite Note raises €1.2million in Investment
Huge Congratulations to our friends in Graphite Note who have raised €1.2m in investment from Enterprise Ireland and Harvest Financial CEO Gerry Devitt.
The Kerry-based machine learning start-up, founded in 2020 by Hrvoje Smolic (pictured above) and Vinnie Lynch, intends to use the funds to achieve further international growth and add 25 jobs. Hrvoje Smolic and Vinnie Lynch both participated in the 2022 Entrepreneur Experience and have worked extensively with AxisBIC on refining their business plans.
Graphite Note's platform enables organisations create machine learning models with their no-code AI tool in minutes, automatically transforming data into key drivers, actionable insights, and strategic responses.
Entrepreneur Experience Alumni MyGug raises €900k Investment
AxisBIC are delighted for MyGug founders Kieran Coffey and Fiona Kelleher (pictured above) who have raised €900,000 in Investment.
MyGug, the Cork-based food waste-to-energy start-up, has developed an egg-shaped anaerobic digester that turns food waste into renewable energy and fertiliser, has customers in food services and education settings in Ireland and is planning to grow its footprint abroad,
MyGug have participated in the Entrepreneur Experience and the Prep4Seeed Programme working closely with AxisBIC (formerly CorkBIC) on their business plans, expansions and investment pitch.
The latest funding round, which follows a pre-seed raise in February 2023, was led by BVP Investments with support from Enterprise Ireland. The State agency has identified MyGug as a “high potential start-up”.
Founded by husband and wife duo Kieran Coffey and Fiona Kelleher, MyGug has won a number of awards since coming to market with its product in 2022, including the sustainability category in the 2023 Irish Times Innovation Awards.
Click here to read the full article in the Irish Times
Entrepreneur Experience Alumni SymPhysis Medical secures €1.5m in funding
SymPhysis Medical, which has developed a solution to treat a common complication of late-stage cancers, has secured €1.5 million in funding ahead of plans to raise an additional €4.5 million to secure FDA approval for its technology.
Founders Dr. Michelle Tierney and Tim Jones (pictured above) participated in the 2021 Entrepreneur Experience and Tim Jones also participated in the panel discussion at the CorkBIC (now AxisBIC) Celebration of High Growth Startups in June 2023.
Cork based Boole Investment Syndicate and Limerick based Irrus Investments, Furthr VC and HBAN’s MedTech Syndicate have all made follow-up investments in the company having initially backed it in a €1.9 million raise two years ago.
UCC medtech NeuroBell announces spin-out with €2.1million funding round
Cork-based, Neurobell is building a monitor to detect seizures in newborn babies has spun-out from University College Cork with the closure of a €2.1 million funding round that it says will help it launch the device and secure regulatory approval.
NeuroBell, co-founded by Dr Mark O’Sullivan, Colm Murphy and Dr Alison O’Shea (pictured above) from the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research at UCC, will also create 12 new jobs over the next year to help support its growth plan.
CorkBIC has worked with co-founder Dr Mark O'Sullivan on their business plan and raising investment.
The company has developed an AI-powered neonatal brain monitor to detect brain seizures in babies admitted to neonatal intensive care units after birth.
NeuroBell has created a pocket-sized wireless device that enables routine monitoring of babies without the need for particular expertise, obviating the need for continuous electroencephalography monitoring, which requires specialised training.
Entrepreneur Experience Alumni Coro to start production on ground-breaking breastfeeding monitor
Entrepreneur Experience Alumni Rosanne Longmore (pictured above), CEO and Founder Coro (formrely Coroflo) has announced that Coro has completed technical validation on the device with production to get underway shortly.
Based in Dublin, Coro has developed a revolutionary nipple shield and app that helps mothers accurately monitor the milk flow to their baby in real-time. The silicon shield comes with a patented micro-flow sensor that provides accurate details of how much breast milk an infant has consumed.
Rosanne participated in the 2018 Entrepreneur Experience and more recently returned to mentor Emerging Entrepreneurs. Shemas Eivers, Chairman of the Boole Investment Syndicate, based in Cork was one of the first investors in Coro and continues to invest in the company as it grows. Coro has now raised €5.5 million.
Click here to read the full article as it appeared in the Business Post
A Record 17 HPSUs approved in 2023 across CorkBIC Territory
2023 was another very busy year for CorkBIC with over 200 startups participating in events both online and in person, and the CorkBIC team working closely with many fantastic Startups and Entrepreneurs.
We are especially excited to announce that 17 of our client companies qualified for Enterprise Ireland's HPSU (High potential Startups) status. This is a record number of HPSUs from the South West and Mid-West of Ireland. HPSUs are Ireland's stand-out high growth startups, focused on scale and international markets.
The teams CorkBIC have worked with in 2023 were exceptional and included Peigin Crowley founder of sustainable beauty brand Ground; Neurobell who recently spun out of UCC with €2.1million in funding (read the article here); MyGug founded by Fiona Kelleher & Kieran Coffey (pictured above) who completed the Prep for Seed Programme in 2023 and have gone on to win awards with their food waste treatment system.
The HPSUs came from a wide variety of sectors including Fintech, MedTech, Life Sciences, Food, ICT and FemTech but again the ICT sector was strongly represented in our region with companies like Valid8Me, Emotionise, Giyst, Ascend Cloud Solutions securing Enterprise Ireland HPSU Investment.
CorkBIC are so lucky to work with many great Startups & Entrepreneurs who are building Innovative Businesses both in Ireland and internationally. CorkBIC continues to work closely with Enterprise Ireland on a number of initiatives and Programmes like the Pre-Seed Startup Fund (PSSF) (Next Workshop Feb 28) and the Prep4Seed Programme which benefit our clients enormously. The Prep4Seed Programme is delivered by the Irish BICs (CorkBIC, Furthr, South East BIC & West BIC) on behalf of Enterprise Ireland and is focused on companies who are planning a seed funding round in the short to medium term.