Funding takes Irish Web 2.0 firm to next level


4 Apr 2008

Web-based digital media storage company PutPlace today expanded its operations with the appointment of a new chairman, Michael O’Callaghan COO at Babelgum, along with Katherine Lucey joining as COO in the wake of the firm’s successful funding round which was led by both Enterprise Ireland and angel investors.

“We have done two rounds of funding, an initial round of €250,000 in January and a larger round with €350,000 from EI and €500,000 from angel investors,” said Joe Drumgoole, founder of PutPlace.

“Raising money is always stressful but our DA Ray Walsh did an outstanding job and having a good DA always makes raising EI money easier. The angel funds were shepherded in by our board members Brian Caulfield and Pat Lynch.”

PutPlace, founded by Joe Drumgoole, had its beginning in the Project Development Centre (PDC), which was an initiative by Dublin Institute of Technology before going on to its present headquarters in Digital Hub in Dublin.

“PutPlace is a response to a pain point experienced by most consumers in trying to manage their expanding digital content,” said Drumgoole.

“Whether the issue is multiple devices, changing devices over time, or unforeseen data loss, consumers can now relax in the knowledge that their selected content is easily and automatically backed-up and managed.”

What Drumgoole said started out as ‘a guy with an idea’ is now a growing business with its ‘digital locker’ service currently running in beta while aiming to launch fully by early 2009.

Drumgoole said: “The focus of our efforts since January has been to address issues raised in the initial private beta. Specifically, to allow us the ability to control resource usage, improve upload performance, support richer filters to eliminate content that shouldn’t be backed up and simplify the web interface.”

User content is stored on Amazon’s storage service (S3) and PutPlace will be rolling out a ‘bring your own storage’ model in the future where the user can choose their own favourite storage provide, eg Skydrive from Microsoft, XDrive from AOL or GDrive from Google.

O’Callaghan’s brings his experience as COO of Dublin-based internet television company Babelgum, as well as his former role as president and general manager of Oracle’s European development centre in Dublin, to his appointment as chairman.

“PutPlace’s usability and functionality immediately impressed me. This is a real solution to a real consumer problem. I look forward to working with PutPlace to fulfil the company’s obvious potential,” said O’Callaghan.

By Marie Boran