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Funding / Investments News
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According to Dawn McKnight, Partner and Head of the Technology Team at Carson McDowell, a key driver for the future success of the NI economy will be the performance of the private sector,... |
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 DBR Trading Ltd in Fivemiletown has been assisted by Invest Northern Ireland to perfect an innovative device that makes administering drugs to cows easier and safer for vets and farmers.
The company used an Invest NI Innovation Voucher to seek design support from experts at the InnoTech Centre of the South West College in Cookstown to carry out development work on the Klassoo Cattle Restraint. The device was produced by David Russell, a Fivemiletown-based engineer and Liam Keelagher, a Tyrone dairy farmer with input from a local vet. |
 Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster announced that Augentius Fund Administration is to establish a centre in Belfast, which will employ up to 164 professional staff by the end of 2014.
Augentius provides outsourced fund administration services to the private equity and real estate sectors. Formed 10 years ago with offices in London and Guernsey, Augentius has subsequently expanded internationally opening offices in New York, Luxembourg, Mauritius, Singapore and more recently The Netherlands. |
Halo, the NI Business Angel Network, which is a joint initiative of Invest NI and InterTradeIreland is looking for companies who wish to pitch at their investor evening to be held at The Innovation Centre, Northern Ireland Science Park, on 21st June 2012.
Halo is a network of over 100 business angels who since 2009 have invested over £3m in high growth start-up businesses (not exclusively, but typically those which can return 10 times or more on investment in an average 5 year time frame e.g. |
 Following a substantial financial boost of £2.2m into the business last year, east Belfast-based printing company, GPS Colour Graphics, today announced a further £300,000 investment in short run digital print and new innovative technology as it celebrated its 100th anniversary at an event in Titanic Belfast.
GPS, Northern Ireland’s largest commercial in-house digital and litho printing company, also unveiled a new corporate identity and website and launched its unique ‘PrintStore’ software. |
 Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster today announced a £10million investment by Kainos that will create 60 software engineering jobs in Londonderry.
As part of the planned investment, Kainos will also undertake a major research and development project at its Belfast office that will create a further eight jobs there and invest almost £4million in staff training.
The company is one of Northern Ireland’s most successful indigenous ICT companies, employing over 300 staff across its offices in Belfast, Dublin, London and Gdansk. |
 IT Sligo is collaborating with companies from around the country who are availing of expert research and consultancy services provided by the Institute, to exploit new business opportunities.
Trevor McSharry, Head of the Civil Engineering and Construction Department at IT Sligo, has successfully completed a number of such projects for local companies who received “Innovation Vouchers” from Enterprise Ireland. Projects ranged from analysis of prototype solar panel systems to design process optimisation and product design. |
Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson is encouraging business owners to take advantage of the Empty Premises Relief which came into effect on 1 April 2012.
Business ratepayers who move into premises which were previously unoccupied for 12 months or more can claim a one year concession, during 2012/13, that will allow 50% empty property relief to continue for a year. To receive the 50% relief, ratepayers must submit an application to Land & Property Services (LPS) with evidence that the property, when last used, was used for retail purposes. |
 The Pitch, Britain’s biggest small business competition, is returning to Northern Ireland with another £50,000 worth of business support up for grabs.
Organised by BusinessZone.co. |
 Good Headline writing is a gift, as is the creation of good Acronyms. I regret I have neither; so we have Northern Ireland Science Park, NISP, an important project but a lousy Acronym. My only defence is that I’m in good company with the US and EU bureaucrats that invented SBIR (US) and SBRI, the EU counterpart. |
May 02, 2012 |  |
 Still a long way to go on the chalk progress bar just after the start of SpringUp – our 28-hour non-stop startup challenge. Hopefully it’s not big-headed to say that we’re chuffed with the outcome of our very first open event last month. One of our founding members Matt Campbell brought in a 28-hour non-stop startup hackathon called SpringUp and, to put it simply, five new web businesses were launched overnight. |
 Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster today announced that US-owned M/A-COM Technology Solutions (UK) Ltd (M/A-COM Tech UK) is investing £2.5 million in a major research and development project at its Belfast centre.
The investment, which is supported by Invest Northern Ireland, aims to broaden the company’s global market reach by developing new components and solutions in the specialist areas of microwave integrated circuits and power amplifiers. |
April 27, 2012 | |
 Last weekend, in one room in Belfast, five new companies sprung up overnight. Five teams competed in SpringUp, the first event of its kind in Northern Ireland. SpringUp is a 28-hour non-stop challenge to build a startup and pitch it to a panel of judges posing as potential investors. |
A new multi-million pound package of funding for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships between universities and businesses is a significant boost to the Northern Ireland economy, it was claimed today.
Tim Brundle, Director of Innovation at the University of Ulster, welcomed the announcement by Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister Arlene Foster that £13 million will be injected into the Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme in Northern Ireland over the next five years.
The UK-wide initiative supports businesses that want to improve their competitiveness, productivity and performance by helping them to access the knowledge and expertise available within local universities and further educational colleges. |
Application deadline extended to 4th May!
NISP CONNECT and Halo’s 2012 Pitchfest is underway!!
• Are you a Northern Irish science or technology start-up company that could benefit from exposure to some of our top executives, high-technologists and professionals living overseas? |
 Our inaugural Angel Meetup event was deemed a success with over 150 delegates in attendance who heard a group of leading angel investors share their insight and experiences with a packed audience. Media personality and angel investor Gavin Duffy compared the event, with investors including Bill Laio of SOS Ventures, Tadgh O’Toole of Bloom Equity and Danny Moore of Loughshore Investments amongst the panel and speakers.
It also gave Diane Roberts of Xcell Partners an opportunity to launch a new investment initiative Colman Equity which will have hubs in both Belfast and Dublin. |
Ministers launch ni2012 in Delhi at the conclusion of a successful business and trade mission to UAE and India
The First Minister Rt Hon Peter Robinson MLA, and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness MP,MLA launched ni2012 in Delhi at the end of their trade and business mission to the United Arab Emirates and India. The event was attended by a range of Indian travel operators and travel agents.
During their five day trade and business mission Ministers visited Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Mumbai and New Delhi. |
 Following a trade mission to Northern Ireland from the most powerful woman in China, Liu Yandong, BCMS Corporate has announced a multi-million pound opportunity for a local firm to sell their business to a listed Chinese company.
The company, which has up to £50m to spend on acquiring one or more overseas businesses as part of a growth strategy, has approached BCMS Corporate to help them find innovative and technologically advanced firms in industries including the production of lab analysis and medical equipment, monitoring products, ecological improvements and energy conservation.
BCMS Corporate, which has an office in Belfast, is the market leader in the sale of privately owned companies. |
April 17, 2012 |  |
 The NISP CONNECT 25K Awards is designed to find the next big thing emerging from the NI research base. Entering its 5th year in its current form, the awards sponsored by Bank of Ireland UK, look for pioneering ideas from across a range of emerging knowledge based sectors including Hitech, Biotech, CleanTech and Digital Media & Software. Michael Crossey, Chief Marketing Officer at Digital Media and Software Sector category sponsor Aepona, gives his views on the evolution of the mobile applications market in the context of Network Application Programming Interface (Network APIs), cloud services and web technologies such as HTML5. |
• Have you got a company, either start-up or established, that needs money to grow?
• If you had some equity, could you demonstrate really good growth?
• Would having an angel on board really help your business?
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 Alan Watts, Director of Halo the NI business angel network, has just been elected to serve a 3 year term as Vice President of The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the largest professional society in Europe.
The IET is the professional home for engineers from many disciplines including electrical, software, communications and many others. As with other learned bodies, it manages the professional standards of its members, helps them in their careers with continuing professional development and acts as their interface to government and education to ensure the reputation of the subject and its people. |
 Bangor-based company Omnisoft Services Ltd has created 14 new jobs in an expansion driven by the growth of its web design services and the development of a new product for the educational market.
The expansion is being supported by Invest Northern Ireland, which has offered £44,000 of support for 11 of the jobs through its Jobs Fund scheme.
Omnisoft Services was set up in 2009 to provide web design services but has recently diversified into web-based games for children and social media management strategies. |
 InterTradeIreland has today launched the 2012 phase of its sales development programme, Elevate, which aims to help small businesses develop sales opportunities through first time cross-border exports.
The Elevate programme was designed specifically for micro businesses with a turnover of less than £1million and less than ten members of staff, so is tailored very precisely to their needs. The programme aims to help these businesses to become export ready by providing full financial funding to increase their cross-border sales. |
 Accomplished US investor Bill Payne, Bill Liao, Danny Moore and others to share insights at Angel Meetup in Dublin
Over 100 angel investors and entrepreneurs will gather in Dublin this month for the inaugural Irish Angel Meetup to be addressed by top private investment specialists. The Meetup will also showcase four innovative start-ups firms in a pitch competition to raise finance. Organised by Diane Roberts of Xcell Partners, it takes place at Startup Bootcamp, Barrow Street D4 on Wednesday 18th April next. |
All of Belfast’s available grade A office space combined would be needed to meet one single requirement issued in Dublin this week, according to Lisney's David McNellis.
The leading commercial property agent says that Belfast has a total of around 400,000 sq ft of grade A office space available (based on research by Lisney), the same amount of space Microsoft is currently seeking to acquire in one Dublin deal.
Mr McNellis says that this highlights the disparity between the two markets that exists almost entirely because of the difference in corporation tax levied. |
Got an Idea? Need Funding? Here's Where to Look If you are an entrepreneur or the owner of a young or developing small business, one of the hardest parts of realising your ideas, inventions, schemes and business plans is getting funding. |
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Expert Opinion
provided by Neasa Quigley
Neasa Quigley heads up the Corporate and Commercial Team at Carson McDowell. Neasa has extensive corporate transactional experience having advised on a wide variety of private M&A deals and private equity and venture capital fundraisings for clients operating in a variety of sectors.
Neasa's client base since qualification as a lawyer has been drawn predominantly from the Technology sector. She has acted for venture capital funds investing in companies in the Technology sector as well as for many well known local technology companies including Kainos Software, Lagan Technologies (acquired by Kana) and Meridio (acquired by Autonomy) and for emerging technology companies such as Sisaf.
She has won recent praise from her clients: "I have found Neasa to be commercial and pragmatic in her approach to business. Her subject matter knowledge and depth of experience is market leading. Neasa's approach to client service is first rate." (Quote from a Private Equity Client).
Neasa's wide ranging transactional experience and knowledge of the technology sector is second to none and she can provide expert guidance through some of the most important deals which you and your company will encounter.
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