Seedcorn helps MailDistiller get on to the VC ladder
Posted: Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
For start-ups, particularly those in the technology area, funding is one of the biggest hurdles they will face in their early years. This is why MailDistiller is particularly grateful to the all-island Seedcorn competition run by InterTradeIreland’s EquityNetwork.
The Carrickfergus based company, which was spun out from BT in 2004 provides a range of e-security software tools that knock out spam, viruses and other malware before they hit a company’s network. Customers include Norfolk Line Ferries and the Progressive Building Society. The company has eight full-time and two part-time employees and sells exclusively through an extensive network of channel partners throughout Ireland and the UK.
In November 2005, the company won the Belfast Region of the all-island competition and with it a cheque for 20,000 euros. But although the money was put to good use in a growing business, the competition also brought long-term strategic benefits.
“Entering Seedcorn enabled us to get a proper focus on our business plan and gain a lot of insight into the market we were serving. It also gave us exposure to venture capital and ultimately helped introduce us to the company that subsequently invested in us” says co-founder and interim CEO Colm McGoldrick.
The invest in question was Crescent Capital, one of Northern Ireland’s best known venture capital (VC) firms, which in June 2006 bought an equity stake in MailDistiller for 500,000 euros. MailDistiller is now negotiating second-round funding , which it plans to use to expand the business into Russia and North America, again through channel partners.
NcGoldrick believes Seedcorn has given MailDistiller the momentum it needs to survive the testing early years. “In our experience, Seedcorn is a competition that equips a business with the ability to take on external money – be it an angel investor, VC, bank funding etc. It was a very good vechile for learning, especially for young enterprise such as ourselves.
The Seedcorn competition, which is in its fifth year, aims to spark entreneurial activity on both sides of the border by offering cash prizes and businessconsultancy to successful entrants. The overall 2006 winner was Enbio, a medical devices campus company based in Cork Institute of Technology, which took home a cash prize of 100,000 euros for its efforts.
Published in the ‘All-Ireland Business’ Spring 2007 suppliment in the Belfast Telegraph in association with InterTradeIreland.
