TECH SCENE BLOOMS IN IRELAND
Because of the can-do spirit in the Land of Poets, more than 1,500 tech companies are thriving there
Web Summit helped put Ireland on the tech map. An annual gathering that draws the likes of Bono, Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, it celebrates ideas, big personalities and the joys of the pub crawl.
“I believe in chasing rainbows,” says Paddy Cosgrave, the indefatigable intellectual who founded the conference and acts as its host. Today it’s considered one of the pre-eminent tech shows of the year.
When Web Summit decided to leave Dublin, after five years, for the warmer climes of Lisbon, Portugal, in November 2016, it sent ripples through the Irish tech community. (A U.S. companion show, Collision, is departing Las Vegas for New Orleans next year.)
The move to Portugal is considered by some a symbolic and financial blow to the local economy, which hauled in $110 million during Web Summit 2014. But it’s a loss the increasingly vibrant tech economy here can handle, with start-ups blooming and an avalanche of American tech companies establishing operations.
Amid the relocation and recriminations, Ireland’s tech scene is growing — whether at Silicon Docks, the home of Google, Facebook and Twitter’s local operations, or throughout Dublin, where a herd of startups are gaining traction.
The European island offers the lure of minimal regulation and lower corporate tax rates (12.5% vs. 35% in the U.S.), a major reason why top U.S. tech companies — including Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, Microsoft, Twitter and eBay — have corporate facilities in Ireland.
Yet Dublin’s thriving start-up community will greatly determine the fate and fortunes of this business narrative. They employ more workers and are greatly intertwined in the national economy.
“We’re a small, little company on an island with a loud voice,” says Barry Napier, CEO of Cubic Telecom, a 54-person outfit that plans to double in size next year and be worth $500 million to $1 billion within a year. “We’re street fighters.”
Think of Cubic Telecom as the Switzerland of Ireland’s tech start-up scene. It’s a third-party provider of technology that connects mobile devices, cars, computers and other devices across multiple countries without steep roaming charges.
Its spare office in the Sandyford suburb is crammed with several dozen employees, festooned with inspirational quotes on the wall from Steve Jobs and others.
Cubic’s quick path to success is illustra- tive of a can-do spirit in the Land of Poets, where there are more than 1,500 tech companies today, according to entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, though official statistics are hard to find.
“There is a growing fusion (in Ireland) of human capital and venture capital; we’re building an innovative ecosystem,” says Ben Hurley, CEO of NDRC. He’s seated in a conference room at Digital Exchange, an accelerator for about a dozen start-ups located in a building that used to be part of St. James’s Gate Brewery.
Within the space, entrepreneurs work together, listen to lectures and welcome mentoring from established companies.
The after-hours scene is much the same. The previous evening, about 25 hopeful start-ups — parcel-tracking service Xpreso and Optrace, a maker of serialized holographic labels, among them — gathered to make elevator pitches, share in sausage bites and pine for fame and fortune.
But no one expects instant riches. Ireland must contend with London for talent.
“See these blotches on my face?” says Napier. “They come from stress. I go on vacation, they go away. Once I’m back at work, they return.”