Jobs boost as Nucleus invests in SourceDogg.com

SOFTWARE START-UP SourceDogg.com has completed a €600,000 investment round with Nucleus Venture Partners.

The Galway-based company develops procurement software that is delivered via the internet and uses a social media interface to manage the process of finding and evaluating suppliers for quotations or tenders.

The funds will be used to create new jobs in technical development, online marketing and international sales at the company’s offices in Galway and Dublin. The company employs 13 people and further recruitment is planned as a result of the investment. “We’re going to be at 20 people quite early in the new year,” said chief operations officer Mark Scanlon.

The company is looking to grow primarily in the UK and US markets. Founded in 2009, SourceDogg.com has signed several public and private sector customers in Ireland including the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and Bord Bia. It recently completed a contract to upgrade the LAQuotes.ie supplier sourcing system used for local authority tenders. The company also has customers in other countries including Estonia and Romania.

Nucleus Venture Partners, also based in Galway, invests in software, engineering, manufacturing, cleantech and telecoms companies. Directors Alan Phelan and Sean McKeague previously worked at Servigroup, a UK signalling and telecommunications firm, growing it into a £25 million business before selling it in 2005 to consulting group Mouchel.

In June, Nucleus completed a €4.15 million investment into residential satellite broadband provider Onwave. Nucleus wasn’t the only potential investor for SourceDogg.com, but Mr Scanlan said Nucleus’s approach most closely matched its own long-term ambitions for the company. “Our goal is very much to become the biggest in this space by 2014,” he said.