US blockchain-focused start-up opts for Galway over Dublin

Blockdaemon, a Brooklyn-based start-up whose backers include telecoms giant Comcast, is to establish an office in Galway.

The company has created a blockchain platform that provides easy deployment, connection and management of nodes. This enable companies to launch new permission blockchain projects in minutes instead of months.

Dublin might seem the most obvious location in Ireland for a blockchain-focused start-up to base itself, but Blockdaemon's chief executive Konstantin Richter said it had thought long and hard at where to establish its European headquarters.

“Establishing our first international arm in Ireland, Europe’s tech capital, was a no-brainer. While Dublin’s ‘Silicon Docks’ is the go-to for technology companies, we kept an open mind to cities emerging as tech hotbeds.

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"We had heard that a lot of tech talent were migrating to cities such as Limerick, Cork, and Galway. Our research on the education and training levels found Galway to be a tech-forward city with extremely talented engineers," said Mr Richter.

The software company, which was only established last year, recently raised $3.3 million in investment in a financing round led by the venture capital arm of Comcast.

Mr Richter said Blockdaemon was the only multi-cloud orchestration platform that was also blockchain protocol agnostic.

He added that the company intended to offer a number of unique features and services for the European market while maintaining fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). "Our infrastructure will give greater flexibility and control to the data regulation efforts in the EU."

The company will initially employ four people in its Galway offices, but Mr Richter said there was plenty of room for growth.

“There is no limit to innovation and growth in Galway, and we expect this office to be a powerful one. We intend to create the next generation of decentralised infrastructure, so we are looking into spinning up a data centre in Ireland at some point.

“Ireland is a key beachhead for us for adding the euro zone to our infrastructure network, and we will continue to grow and scale up our operations there.”