Survey Highlights Success of NovaUCD Supported Companies

University College Dublin’s (UCD) Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs, has revealed that since it opened 15 years ago, supported companies have raised over €760 million in equity funding. UCD has supported over 360 companies and early-stage ventures operating in sectors including AgTech, CleanTech, FinTech, ICT, MedTech and Life Sciences, through the services and supports provided by NovaUCD. The combined annual turnover of the companies surveyed amounted to over €113 million in 2018 and collectively they currently employ over 1,040 people directly, more than 950 of whom are based in Ireland.

At NovaUCD new high-tech and knowledge-intensive start-up companies are nurtured and supported to enable them to develop, scale and create jobs. Early-stage ventures have additionally completed programmes run by NovaUCD, such as the UCD VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme (and its predecessor the Campus Company Development Programme) and the UCD Start-Up Stars Programme.

Julie Sinnamon, CEO, Enterprise Ireland, said “Start-ups are the life blood of the Irish economy and a key role for Enterprise Ireland is to support the start-up ecosystem. Enterprise Ireland has supported NovaUCD over the last 15 years and I would like to congratulate the centre and the companies on their success.”

UCD’s technology transfer team, which is responsible for the commercialisation of the intellectual property emerging from UCD’s world-class research programmes, is also based at NovaUCD.

Since 2003, 45 new UCD spin-out companies have been incorporated; over 825 inventions have been disclosed by UCD researchers; over 280 priority patent applications have been filed and more than 200 licensing deals have been concluded with a range of indigenous and international businesses such as, Amdocs, Amryt and Glanbia.

Six private sector sponsors; AIB, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Xilinx contributed to the development of the NovaUCD facility originally, along with Enterprise Ireland and UCD. NovaUCD’s technology transfer team has in addition been supported through Enterprise Ireland’s Technology Transfer Strengthening Initiative (TTSI) since 2007. TTSI is managed and administered by Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI).