Former innovation awards finalists: how far have they progressed since?

Tweak

Founded by serial entrepreneur

Jerry Kennelly

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Pat Fitzgerald of FitzGerald Nurseries: “The business has been a bit static since 2011 but the market is starting to grow again.” Photograph: Dylan Vaughan

, the 2012 service category winner Tweak.com is a web-based service that puts design and graphics capability in the hands of business owners and individuals with no design or technical expertise required.

The service offers tens of thousands of templates covering just about every piece of corporate material imaginable from advertisements through brochures, websites, newsletters, business cards letterheads, to posters and placemats.

Users simply choose the template that suits their business type and “tweak” it to their own requirements.

The service goes further than just design, though, it also offers a vast selection of rights-free content which users can adapt for their material. For example, a flower shop owner can choose generic text covering florists for their website and make whatever slight amendments are necessary to turn it into something specific to their business.

Once a design has been completed, it can be sent through to a commercial printer for printing.

“It’s a bit like offering high-end fashion at off-the-peg prices,” says Kennelly. “We are empowering business owners throughout the world to take control of the image of their business and produce Madison Avenue-standard design and print at prices they can afford.”

Businesses around the world are already using the Tweak service without knowing it.

“It’s very much a partner-based business,” Kennelly adds. “Our partners are the leading online printers in Europe, North and South America and Australia. The Tweak platform is integrated into their systems as a set of API services.

“ Their customers can use the Tweak service to design and print advertising, marketing and other materials all in one process,” Kennelly says.

“This opens up a new area of business for the online printers as they are not just waiting for customers to upload materials but they can offer them the full design service as well.”

Headquartered in Killorglin, Co Kerry, with offices in Dublin, Latvia, Portugal and Sweden, Tweak is about to go live with a new version of the service which will be four times faster than the existing one.

“It has been a rough enough ride since the awards,” says Kennelly. “We have continued investing in the platform; the latest improvement is the result of a €1 million investment. We will be making some very significant partner announcements in the coming months and we are continuing to grow.

“The burgeoning online printing sector only accounts for about 5 per cent of the overall print market at the moment, but we expect that to grow very significantly in the coming years and we will be there growing with it.”

Aerogen

Irish-owned medical device company Aerogen made the 2011 final for its Aeroneb Solo aerosolised drug-delivery system for acute-care patients. The system utilises the company’s patented OnQ vibrating mesh micro-pump that produces a very fine particle mist.

This small particle size enables deep lung deposition and facilitates quick delivery of the medication across the respiratory membrane to the blood stream ensuring effective disease treatment.

What set the system apart from the competition was its unique ability to nebulise drugs in a ventilation circuit without adding additional flow.

All other aerosolised drug delivery systems were based on a concept of adding gas to the ventilator unit, which may dilute the aerosol and alter the care giver’s desired ventilation volumes and pressures.

The Aeroneb Solo sits into the circuit with the drugs being nebulised without the addition of any gas.

The company has been growing at a rate of more than 30 per cent annually since 2011 and now employs 100 people divided between Galway and offices in the US, China, England, France and Germany.

"When we entered the awards we were selling 100,000 units a year," says ceo John Power. "This year we will do one million units and we have treated more than two million patients overall so far."

The company’s growth is founded on continued investment in innovation. “A big chunk of our turnover goes back into R&D,” he points out. “We have a very large number of staff engaged in R&D for a company of our size.”

One result of this investment has been the development of a new product called Emergency Room which, as the name suggests, is for use in emergency department settings. The product was developed as a result of actual clinical experience.

“It is designed for the treatment of people presenting with severe asthma or COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] attacks and we believe it will significantly reduce the requirement for hospital admissions,” Power says.

“The Aeroneb Solo is used mainly in ICUs and emergency room staff were taking the system from the ICU and using it in conjunction with other systems to treat patients. ICU staff were complaining about missing equipment. We developed a new system specifically for emergency room use as a result. We rolled it out in Europe last year and will be launching in America this year.”

X-Bolt

The 2012 finalist X-Bolt Orthopaedics produced a novel device for use in bone fixation in osteoporotic hip fractures. Traditional internal fixation uses bone screws that depend on the hold of the screw threads.

The X-Bolt works in a similar fashion to a masonry or plasterboard rawl-plug bolt that expands to grip within the bone and thus gives a much stronger hold and rotational stability.

X-Bolt founder, orthopaedic surgeon Dr Brian Thornes, got the idea for the invention when he was installing a wall-mounted flat-screen TV in his home.

“You needed expanding rawl plugs to fix it to the plasterboard wall,” he says. “Many elderly people’s bones are soft and crumbly and this makes them similar to plasterboard in consistency and causes fixation problems for traditional screws. I set up the company to develop the X-Bolt in 2007 and spent the next few years on its research and development.”

Progress has been slow and steady since the awards, according to Thornes.

“We have done quite a bit since 2012 and recorded some big milestones. We have done a big clinical trial involving more than 100 patients in the UK, we are developing a full portfolio of products for hip fracture treatment and we have raised €2.5 million in funding since then – €1.8 million of it last year. We now employ eight people, that’s doubled since 2012. We know that a lot of our ships are going to come in this year.”

Perhaps the clearest sign of success for a company in this sector is when the multinationals sit up and take notice.

“A number of multinationals are starting to show signs of interest in the company and this may lead to one of them purchasing it at some stage in the future. Irish companies don’t really have the capacity to scale up and grow globally in this space.

“My own skillset is in innovation, R&D and new product development so, if the company is sold at some point, I will move on to develop something else. I am already part of the Halo Business Angel Network and I intend investing in another medtech company this year.”

FitzGerald Nurseries

FitzGerald Nurseries developed a unique range of plants suitable for all year round colour in small garden spaces, planters and containers. It has grown from a traditional family farm into Ireland’s leading young plant nursery, with two facilities in Kilkenny and a micro-propagation laboratory in Co Wexford. It supplies young plants to plant growers in 18 countries.

It also carries out contract micro-propagation production and new variety development and has bred a number of its own varieties which are sold around the world as micro-propagated plants, plugs and liners.

The company made the finals of the 2011 awards for its success in utilising plant science to establish a unique portfolio of plants and develop and breed varieties that are protectable under patent on an international basis. In addition, the firm has introduced high-tech processes and organisation to the horticulture sector and this has enabled to scale up production and break into the international marketplace.

Customers in America, Japan, Europe, South Africa and Australia are mainly in the primary grower sector. These growers in turn sell to the garden centres and other main plant sales outlets in their home markets. They import and grow the plants under licence from FitzGerald and pay a royalty per plant sold. FitzGeralds will supply some closer markets directly.

“The business has been a bit static since 2011 but the market is starting to grow again,” managing director Pat FitzGerald says. “The laboratory will be going through an expansion phase this year as continue to build our portfolio of plants. We now have 40 people working for us and we are shipping to 26 countries around the world.”

The company has also moved into the food sector in the past few years. “We set up another company to work in the food area in 2011. We now have the only licensed range of sweet potato on the European market and we will be looking at other niche food crops as well. We plan to invest significant resources in this area over the next three years.”

Vennetics

Communications and internet technology company Vennetics made the 2011 finals with a brand new app which could unify communications across applications such as Skype, Facetime, VOIP and standard phone networks seamlessly across multiple devices.

The firm has moved on since then and now focuses on the video-on-demand (VoD) market with a service which integrates the leading and most popular VoD providers such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime, YouTube Films and BBC iPlayer, allowing users to quickly and easily find the film or TV show they are seeking at the cheapest price.

"There has been an explosion in VoD services in the US in particular and the number is growing all the time in the UK and Ireland as well," says Vennetics chief executive John Hammill. "At the moment, if you are subscribed to a number of these services you've got to scroll down in each to find what you are looking for.

“You might go on to one service and pay to watch a new movie only to find that it was available at no extra charge on Netflix. With our system, you can search all the services you are subscribed to at the same time and find where you can watch it cheapest.”

The company sells the service as a white-label product to broadband providers who will offer it to their subscribers. “We have customers in North America, the Caribbean and Europe at present,” says Hammill. “One of our customers is Bell in Canada. If one of their broadband subscribers goes into their VoD service, they are actually using the Vennetics service but it is a seamless experience for them. Demand is very strong for the product and our biggest problem now is finding developers. If five suitably qualified Java developers walked in the door now, we’d hire them.”

Mentaga

Founded in 2004, Loughrea-based cut-e Ireland develops and provides internet software systems, services and products to help organisations select, develop, teach, train, manage and retain the most effective people in a cost-efficient manner. This is done through the provision of web- based psychometric and competency assessment products and related business- consulting services.

The company’s Mentaga online learning portal was shortlisted in the 2011 awards. The portal helps students and educators use more effective learning and study methods and make choices for further learning and career options that are more appropriate for the student.

It allows students to build a personal profile, assess and receive feedback on their learning style, learning capabilities, interests, study approach and matches students against 800 potential career choices in a positive and supportive manner.

Mentaga also has applications at third level where it can be used to create an improved and more time efficient process for careers advisers to handle large student populations. The system improves employer targeting and career choice for students thereby helping increase placement and work offers for students. Since 2011, the system has evolved to become part of the overall cut-e suite of solutions and is now in use in major companies around the world.

"Vodafone offer it to their broadband customers whose children use it to self-assess themselves to see what careers might suit them as well as using it as a learning aid," says cut-e chief executive David Barrett.

“Companies in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand are using it to help with recruitment and selection and universities are using it to support undergraduates in their career choices. We now have offices in New York, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Dubai, Melbourne and Sydney.

“We have employed 50 additional staff since being shortlisted for the awards and we hope to hire a further 25 this year,” Barrett adds. “Our turnover is doubling year on year and the platform is now being used by some of the world’s biggest brands for the assessment and screening of new staff.”