13 start-up ideas from the West secure Enterprise Ireland funding

5 Feb 2013

Barry Egan, Enterprise Ireland director, West region; John Perry, TD, Minister for Small Business; and Alma Curley, CGA Software

Thirteen new ventures based in the West of Ireland have today been awarded funding from Enterprise Ireland via its €200,000 Competitive Feasibility Fund. The start-ups hail from a range of areas, including online payments, educational software and life sciences.

The fund was launched last September to offer funding of up to €25,000 to help self-starters explore the feasibility of their ideas and the scope to create jobs in the West region.

Entrepreneurs and early stage companies in the ICT, industrial and food sectors based in Galway, Mayo and Roscommon were eligible to apply.  

The Minister for Small Business John Perry, TD, announced the winners of the funding this morning. Enterprise Ireland is now set to work closely with each venture.

The winners include MiDough, an online payment service for people without a credit card, and CGA Software, a Galway-based developer of enterprise software for health and safety and facilities management.

Stephanie Fitzgerald O’Malley from Mayo is being awarded funding to develop a child-centred educational software product.

In the health-tech space, Westway Health from Galway secured funding to progress with the manufacturing of a new treatment for bovine mastitis.

Aquila Bioscience has been awarded funding to create a glycoprofiling platform as a diagnostic marker for early stage disease detection.

“The 13 ideas are based in an impressive variety of high-value, innovative sectors led by entrepreneurs seeking to turn their ideas into successful, internationally trading companies,” said Barry Egan, Enterprise Ireland’s West regional director.

He said the agency would now work with these entrepreneurs to help them turn their ideas into export-focused businesses and to create jobs in the West of Ireland.

Carmel Doyle was a long-time reporter with Silicon Republic

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