O'Mahony joins Kernel as adviser

Former senior Elan executive Daniel O'Mahony has joined venture capital firm Kernel Capital Partners.

Dr O'Mahony, who is technology transfer officer at NUI Galway, has acted as a scientific adviser to Kernel in the past, but will now take on a full-time role with the company.

Cork-based Kernel has been ramping up activities since closing a €70 million fund last November - a pot that includes €20 million investments from Bank of Ireland and Enterprise Ireland.

"I have been involved with Kernel since day one but with the new fund in place, I thought it was time to decide whether I wanted to commit full time," he explains. "There are some very smart people in the company and they have a very different approach to other VCs."

Kernel likes to be involved with companies it invests in as much as possible and is not hung up on an exit strategy when it makes the initial investment, he he says. "If it's a good company with strong fundamentals and technology, the exit strategy will take care of itself."

Dr O'Mahony will take care of Kernel's interests in the broad life sciences area and has three potential investments under consideration.

"We will be looking at investments of minimum €1 million, but typically they will be in the €2-€10 million range," he says.

He is hoping to recreate his success in the academic sector with Kernel. In September 2005, Dr O'Mahony joined NUIG to establish the first technology transfer office at an Irish university. Last year the university received €3 million in licensing revenue for the use of technologies it has developed - equivalent to more than half of the licence revenue in Irish universities, according to Dr O'Mahony.

During his time at the university he favoured a model of joint ventures with industry partners to commercialise research rather than researchers starting their own company.

"In a lot of universities, the primary investigator has been leading the spin-out, but the reality is the majority of them don't have the bandwidth or the capabilities to do it. You have to make a decision in the best interests of the technology, the university and the inventors."

Of the 450 projects currently funded at NUIG, Dr O'Mahony believes about 32 can be commercialised in the next two to three years, which he believes is a "reasonable" return.

Dr O'Mahony says €48 million was spent on research in Galway last year, producing 30 patent applications, 24 licence agreements and four spin-outs.

The average benchmark in Europe is that a €100 million investment should produce eight licences and eight start-up companies. "On a global scale, our returns are equivalent to the best colleges in Europe and the US," he says.