John Phelan, Halo Business Angel Partnership manager and John Hughes, co-founder and managing director of InsulCheck
Business angels organisation the Halo Business Angel Partnership (HBAP) has helped medical devices start-up InsulCheck secure €350,000 in investment.
The investment will lead to the creation of 12 new jobs and will fund new product development.
InsulCheck has developed a small clip-on attachment for insulin pens that automatically records the time since the last injection on a digital display.
“There are currently 50m people worldwide who use insulin pens and more than 50,000 of those are in Ireland,” said John Hughes, co-founder and managing director of InsulCheck.
“I myself have diabetes and the inspiration for this device came from an incident in 2008, when I accidentally double injected and suffered a hypoglycemic event, which resulted in me being hospitalised.”
HBAP’s key role was matching InsulCheck with investors who have expertise in medical sales, marketing and distribution.
Global interest
Since its launch, InsulCheck has been receiving interest from people with diabetes all over the world, including those in the US, Australia, South Africa and across Europe.
With the support of its angel investors, the company has partnered with the main insulin pen producers to ensure the device is compatible with all the most common pen designs.
Its target markets are currently Ireland and the UK and it plans to expand into other European countries and markets further afield over the coming two years. InsulCheck expects to achieve revenues of €3.5m by the end of 2013.
“There are many Irish start-ups with great ideas that serve a very real need, such as InsulCheck, but don’t have the commercial experience or capital to get their product to market,” John Phelan, HBAP manager, explained.
“Investment from our sector-specific, experienced business angels gives these companies the market knowledge and access, along with the financial resources, to really capitalise on sales opportunities.
“Dublin BIC and our regional counterparts are always seeking new investors, not just with cash but with real in-depth knowledge and a potential sales network that maximises our high-potential start-ups commercial opportunity,” Phelan said.
