Digital Hub nears 100 companies after year of expansion

11 Jan 2017

Image: The Digital Hub

With just shy of 100 companies now located in-house, The Digital Hub added 28 new businesses to its burgeoning portfolio last year.

With 97 companies operating across The Digital Hub’s Dublin city campus, and nearly 725 people directly employed on site, times are good in the city.

The organisation has revealed figures for 2016, showing that 28 new companies entered the fold, half of which were brought in from abroad.

This adds to The Digital Hub’s status as the largest cluster of digital media, technology and internet businesses in Ireland, providing a space for indigenous enterprises such as Athena Media, Maithú IT Solutions, Software Design and Sonru to scale and grow.

Last year, perhaps the most notable inclusion into The Digital Hub’s portfolio was Bizimply, a company that has developed an online workforce management application that supports the way restaurants and retail businesses manage and engage with their employees.

The Irish company raised €2m in funding over the course of the year, with an expanding workforce expected in 2017. Among the international enterprises who moved into The Digital Hub last year was AdScribe, a company that helps TV platforms to recognise new revenue streams though analytics and advertising.

“2017 is shaping up to be a fruitful year for The Digital Hub,” said Fiach Mac Conghail, CEO of the hub.

“We have a great pipeline of ambitious companies looking to join the vibrant digital community we are developing here. Our mix of companies within the cluster is always changing. We are putting a renewed focus into revitalising the cluster dynamic to ensure more companies can really reap the benefits from being part of our wider digital community.”

The Digital Hub also hosts eMaint, Eventbrite and Lonely Planet, and is home to industry organisations such as the Irish Internet Association, NDRC and Silicon Republic.

Since the project’s inception, more than 200 companies have progressed through the enterprise cluster at The Digital Hub, with some eventually moving on.

“The renewal and regeneration of vacant sites under our ownership in the Liberties area continues to be a priority for us and will play a key role in funding the future growth of our enterprise cluster,” said Mac Conghail.

“We look forward to strengthening our working partnerships and, in particular, our relationships within the local community in order to enhance Dublin 8’s reputation as a great place to live and work.”

Some well-established alumni include Amazon, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Distilled Media Group (Daft.ie), Etsy, Havok, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Riverdeep), Kavaleer, Lincor, MTT, Slack and Stripe.

Gordon Hunt was a journalist with Silicon Republic

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