AN IRISH company which has developed software to stop people using their phones while driving has raised an additional $1.5 million (€1.13 million) ahead of its product’s launch next month.

The investment brings to $3 million the amount of money raised by 10n2 Technologies, formerly Drive Safe Europe, in the past two years.

Former Government minister Tom Kitt has also joined the company’s advisory board.

The money will help 10n2 with its plans to launch enterprise and consumer version of its software in March, named Biz Protect and One Protect respectively.

“Our business plan is to drive it [the software] out of Ireland,” said chief executive Ciarán Hynes, although he said the products would be launched internationally as their appeal is not limited to Ireland and Britain.

“We feel if we can successfully launch it here, we can use Ireland as a template for the rest of Europe in the same way that the smoking ban was.”

The software works by detecting if a user is in a car by gauging the speed at which they are moving. It asks if they are a passenger or driver in a vehicle and then it presents them with a short “attention verification test” to confirm this.

If they pass, they can use the phone as normal; if they fail – or say they are a driver – the phone becomes inaccessible except through a Bluetooth device.

This makes it it impossible to do things like text, email or web browsing while driving.

Mr Hynes said the dangers of texting while driving was a major concern in the US at the moment but less so in Europe, although he sees that changing.

“We definitely do see this as something for people who would like to enforce upon themselves or their families, essentially,” said Mr Hynes. “Particularly in the US market, it seems to be the parents of younger drivers is where the key focus is.”

The enterprise version of the software will be targeted at companies that want to improve safety and reduce insurance costs among their fleet of drivers.

The company plans to hire 50 people in the next two years to help manage its Dublin operations, which will focus heavily on technical support.

However the investment was not just of financial benefit to the company, according to Mr Hynes.

“The latest investment is significant from a board point of view in that we’re looking at this as a lead investment. We’re going to have Arunas Chesonis on the board and it’s not just the financial input that he’s bringing to the company but his huge contacts base too.”

Mr Chesonis, who led the $1.5 million investment into 10n2 Technology, is the founder and former chief executive of communications company Paetec.

He recently sold the company to US-based company Windstream for $2.3 billion.