The Changing Face of Entrepreneurship – CorkBIC shares its 30 years’ experience
02 October, 2018
500 startups later, leading business venture consultancy, AxisBIC celebrates its 30th anniversary with an event at the Nano Nagle Centre in Cork City on October 1st. The private-sector led organisation, specifically set up in 1988 to identify and support high growth companies in the South West of Ireland, has played a significant role in developing many of Ireland’s knowledge intensive companies.
AxisBIC also operates in the scale up arena, bringing experienced teams to address disruptive opportunities with strong governance and surgical market focus. Its unique style and ‘hands on’ approach has been behind the success of many companies, including Abtran, Compliance & Risks, Crest Solutions, Teamwork.com and others. AxisBIC led Initiatives like the Entrepreneur Experience™ and the Venture Academy™ have helped Entrepreneurs raise €54.4million in investment.
Pictured at the event: Michael O'Connor, AxisBIC; Damien McGovern, Compliance & Risks; Olive O'Driscoll, AventaMed; Joe Healy, Enterprise Ireland; Tánaiste Simon Coveney, TD and Peaches Kemp, itsa...
Tánaiste Simon Coveney, TD commented “Cork is very fortunate to have an organisation like AxisBIC who are at the coalface of innovative business startup activity in the region and play a hands-on role in helping entrepreneurs navigate raising finance, building great teams and finding customers. This is at the core of any new business starting up and as result we have seen many great companies come through this network.”
Michael O’Connor, CEO, AxisBIC “Our objective is to identify and develop high potential startup teams - those using promising technology with capable, innovative people. We have 40 or 50 projects in the pipeline at any one time - 85% of which go on to scale over the critical first 5 years – which far outstrips the international survival average of 50%.”
Damien McGovern, Founder Compliance & Risks commented, “Without AxisBIC Compliance & Risks wouldn't exist. It's that simple. It's important to have at your side people who have 'been there done that' and who can recognise patterns so as to direct and challenge you, especially at the beginning. You're walking a tightrope and you need encouragement, structure and support which I was fortunate enough to get, and for which I am still very grateful.”
Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland said “AxisBIC plays an important role in shaping and developing the business eco-system in Cork to support Innovative start-ups, to reach their full potential. Enterprise Ireland will continue to work in close partnership with regional stakeholders such as AxisBIC to optimize the entrepreneurship potential of Cork, and to create and sustain jobs and prosperity in the Cork Region.”
The BIC celebrations are well-timed coming after the successful roll out of its Accelerator programme in Jan of this year – which offered an investment of €50,000 to teams in the wider security sector. Its International Security Accelerator programme, supported by key funding partners Kernel Capital and Trend Micro, delivers transformational change in 13 weeks. The Accelerator invests in early stage disruptive companies across a wide range of tech sectors such as Cybersecurity, Internet of Things (IOT), Blockchain, AI, Health & Bioinformatics, and Financial Services and Logistics.” The first cohort is currently raising €5million in investment and has already created 39 jobs.