Sunday Independent: In the war for talent, having an innovative Irish company on your side is a major advantage. It’s a fact some of the world’s top brands know firsthand.

Applications for Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation Arena at the National Ploughing Championships, in conjunction with the Irish Farmers Journal, are now being accepted with the deadline extended to the 6th July 2018. 

Irish start-up Know Your Customer (KYC) plans to raise up to €5m in the coming weeks to fund expansion after signing a breakthrough Asian deal with a Hong Kong current account provider.

A UK dairy nutrition company has invested €3.3 million in a new facility near Kells, Co Meath, at which 16 manufacturing jobs will be created.

A new  €500,000 Competitive Start Fund from Enterprise Ireland will support start-ups in the marine technology and agritech sectors.

Kerry financial services firm Fexco has invested €500,000 in Dublin-based fintech outfit Cambrist as part of an €841,000 fundraising.

An Irish space technology company has announced that it is collaborating with the European Space Agency (ESA) in a €500,000 project, which is expected to take 18 months to complete, to develop a new real-time operating system.

Irish firms are being urged to invest in the US, with American political and business leaders insisting there are “vast” opportunities outside the traditional locations on the east and west coasts.

Irish-founded fintech firm Trezeo has kicked off a campaign on crowdfunding platform Seedrs, as it seeks to raise more than £400,000 to develop its products.

It took hundreds of recipe tweaks to satisfy the founders’ taste buds, but eventually the first three flavours rolled off the production line and were launched at the Musgraves Food Academy in Kerry just over a year ago. The bars are now available online and in about 100 outlets nationwide.

Two Irish companies are offering digital services to make booking and paying for your holidays a breeze.

Last week, John Ghent from Sytorus was awarded Enterprise Ireland High-Potential Start-Up (HPSU) Founder of the Year for 2018 at an awards event at the Gibson Hotel, sponsored by Grant Thornton.

Making waves in the global telecommunications industry with cutting-edge wireless services, Cork start-up Software Radio Systems is working to connect business jets to the internet, and to put the latest 4G technology in the hands of emergency first responders.

The digital ticket delivery system works through a smartphone app, similar to Apple Wallet, and is hoping to persuade event organisers to ditch the paper-based tickets for good.

Modern Botany, which is based in Schull in west Cork, plans to launch about five new products a year over the next five years and will be moving into the German market next year, followed by North America in 2020.

Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT) plans to commence building a new three-storey extension to its innovation hub on the Galway campus before the year is out.

Established in 2014, Corlytics helps clients across the financial services community to deal with the increased prominence of regulatory risk following the financial crash of 2008.