Enterprise Ireland missed a big catch with Collison brothers?

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Firefly

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The piece below from today's IT on the Collison brothers from Limerick prompted me to look up their entries on wikipedia.

From Patrick Collison's Wiki page:

After attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States for a time Collison dropped out.[1] In 2007 he set up software company 'Shuppa' (a play on the Irish word 'siopa') in Limerick with his brother John Collison.[6] Enterprise Ireland did not allocate funding to the company, prompting a move to California after Silicon Valley's Y Combinator showed interest. Here, they merged with two Oxford graduates, Harjeet and Kulveer Taggar, and the company became Auctomatic.[6]

[broken link removed]

Does anyone know if this is true? Looks like a major failure for E Ireland. It was obvious to anyone that these guys were gonna break through...
 
Can't say whether Enterprise Ireland did or not, but I heard a very interesting interview with one of the founders of Y Combinator (http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/08/graham_on_start.html)
It is a very interesting concept and innovative way in how venture capital could change in the future. Does not surprise me that they saw the investment potential in these brothers.
 
There is nothing in what the Collison brothers have done to justify funding from a semi-state - there's no guarantee that what they come up with will lead to scalable sustainable employment.

They're better off in Silicon Valley using VC funding. At least there, if they fail, they'll be able to move on to the next thing. Whereas in Ireland, they'd be branded failures and a waste of taxpayer's money.
 

That was a very interesting interview and looks like a good site too, thanks.
 

I think you're right. Probably didn't fit their criteria. If they invested in a lot of these types of startups they could be very easily accussed of gambling taxpayer's money. Given how mobile start ups are now though and the low cost of entry to the maket, perhaps they need to broaded their criteria.
 
I think the problem with Enterprise Ireland is that it cannot learn from mistakes as other venture capital investors would. Enterprise Ireland could lose an entire year's worth of budget on bad investments and still continue the next year with more tax payer money; there is no real fear of loss. All companies especially start-ups would be better served with lower operating costs, i.e. lower taxes and rates, rather than state subsidies.

Firefly said:
That was a very interesting interview and looks like a good site too, thanks.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Russ Roberts does great weekly interviews. Some topics initially look uninteresting, but there is a wealth of information in them.
 
All companies especially start-ups would be better served with lower operating costs, i.e. lower taxes and rates, rather than state subsidies.
Click to expand...
This is so true!
I've been involved with companies that have done the whole enterprise ireland thing, and even manage to get grants. It would be far, far better if their tax burden was reduced instead.
People wanting to start up companies actually have to pay much more in tax than ordinary workers! - Is it any surprise the country is in the mess it's in when we have policy makers like that?
 
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