Dublin tech firms raises €650k in BES round


11 Oct 2007

A promising young Dublin software developer has completed a €650,000 fundraising using the Business Expansion Scheme.

In the December 2006 Budget, the annual limit on BES investment per investor was increased to €150,000 and the ceiling per company increased to €2 million.

CustomerMinds.com’s online software service enables marketers to manage and track their marketing campaigns across multiple channels and has been well received by some of the leading marketing organisations in Ireland.

The company was set up this year by Jonny Parkes and Mike McMahon. Parkes is the founder of the Irish e-learning company Electric Paper, which was acquired by ThirdForce, and McMahon was business development manager at Electric Paper.

Paul O’Sullivan, dean of the Faculty of Business at the Dublin Institute of Technology and an acknowledged authority on marketing was appointed as non-executive director in June.

CustomerMinds.com says it plans to use this round of funding for product development and to build a world-class sales organisation to target international markets.

“These funds will enable us to build on our existing product suite and to convert the pipeline of significant sales leads that are currently under discussion”, said McMahon.

A further round of funding is planned later this year to expand commercial activities in the UK.

By John Kennedy