Orla Battersby takes over as head of the High Performance Start-ups (HPSU) programme in Enterprise Ireland next month. That puts her squarely in a role of trying to develop this process. Balance is on her agenda too, trying to enhance the start-up environments outside Dublin without slowing down progress in the capital.
“The upside of setting up outside Dublin is the reduced cost while still accessing talent in third level institutions. The downside is potentially not attracting the same degree of skills, but that’s across the board in the US and Europe, it’s not just an Irish problem,” said Battersby.
“We are trying to get more accelerators into the region, to get people to help start-ups grow and incubate. We are confident of getting a good spread out there, we have seen from the call we have made to potential investors that there is interest out there.
“Of the 105 HPSUs last year, 58 were outside of Dublin. They are all on the same playing field when it comes to having to sell. Ireland is such a small market that they have to think about exports quickly. Whether they are in Dublin or not, they are all in that position early on.”
Battersby is leaving her current role heading up EI’s North American operation to take over the HPSU programme. She’s looking to take elements of what she has seen in that role to apply them to the problems facing new Irish businesses, although she is bullish on the overall health of the start-up sector.
“We have experience over here of Silicon Valley and we try and bring the best practices from there over to Ireland. When we bring Irish firms over there, it’s mainly an educational process. We don’t expect them to build out there and then. It’s an eye opener for them,” said Battersby.
“I want to see that education piece happening more in Ireland where VCs will meet the start-ups more in Ireland. There are people in the US who are willing and able to help our clients. I want to bring more of that knowledge and those advisors back into Ireland.
“We’re in one of the strongest places that we have ever been. There’s funding available beyond Enterprise Ireland for start-ups and the whole eco-system that we are part of building. Overall, it’s the strongest it’s been in many years.”
Having the perspective of seeing what Irish businesses have made inroads into North American markets, Battersby sees certain sectors where success stories are likely to emerge from in the near future.
“FinTech is an area where we are seeing a lot of growth, and in the US we have been able to introduce a lot of Irish start-ups in this space to larger businesses. We don’t tend to choose sectors but one that strikes me as having massive potential is the internet of things. That’s an area of massive opportunity for start-ups and we have several firms already doing well in that space,” said Battersby.
The full article appeared in the Sunday Business Post, read it here
