FOLLOWING A successful relationship with Telefónica/02 in Ireland last year which saw FeedHenry develop apps for Aer Lingus, Riverdance and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Irish software company has signed an exclusive deal with Telefónica Digital in Britain.
FeedHenry generated new sales of €2 million last year and is targeting new contracts this year of €6-7 million, said chief executive Cathal McGloin.
It provides a cloud-based platform which enables large businesses to build and deploy mobile apps, which interact with their existing computer systems. Supported mobile platforms include Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, Nokia, as well as the mobile web.
“Last year, we repositioned the company around creating mobile apps for the enterprise in the cloud,” explained Mr McGloin. “We are now at the interface of two powerful industry trends – apps and the cloud.”
The exclusive deal with Telefónica Digital will see FeedHenry’s service being launched by 02 in Britain in the coming weeks, before being rolled out in other markets where the telecoms group operates. The service will be branded by 02 and sold by its sales force.
More than 2,000 customers, including developers, have signed up to FeedHenry’s platform.
The business model is to provide a “platform as a service” to which customers subscribe in order to build and manage apps which can be deployed internally to staff or to the public at large.
In the United States, FeedHenry has developed a version of its service for healthcare providers, which meets all relevant legislation for storing patient data, with insurance provider Health New England, one of the first customers.
Having built alliances in the telco space in Europe, Mr McGloin said FeedHenry expected by next month to announce a “major strategic alliance” with a cloud provider. However, he said the strategy in the US will be slightly different, and it will primarily partner cloud computing specialists rather than telcos.
Founded in 2008, FeedHenry grew out of research at Waterford Institute of Technology’s Telecommunications Software Systems Group. The company currently has 30 staff including contractors, but Mr McGloin said this was on target to grow to more than 50 by the end of the year.
FeedHenry has attracted investment from Kernel Capital, through the Bank of Ireland Seed Fund, and Enterprise Ireland. Mr McGloin said talks are under way with both strategic investors and international venture capitalists, with a view to closing a major investment round this year.
