Major Tipperary event as Clonmel becomes a hotbed for entrepreneurs and start-ups

The stellar line-up of speakers who have come on board for Friday’s five-star Entrepreneurs Day at Questum is proof of Clonmel’s rising status as one of Ireland’s emerging ‘start-up’ towns, LIT’s Head of Innovation & Enterprise Gillian Barry has stated.

 Speaking ahead of Friday’s much anticipated event that will see seven business trail blazers give their insights into making it in the world of business, Ms Barry said that the line-up reflects the emerging status of Questum and Clonmel as an emerging hotbed for entrepreneurship.

LIT’s Entrepreneur in Residence at the enterprise acceleration centre Tom Brennan has managed to pull together an unprecedented line-up of proven business people who will deliver plenty of New Year’s inspiration to budding entrepreneurs at the half-day event jointly run by LIT and Tipperary County Council, who jointly established Questum.

Six proven business people from Tipperary, the South East and beyond have been lined-up by Mr Brennan, who was co-founder of EirGen Pharma, which today employs over 250 highly skilled personnel at their US FDA approved facility in Waterford and exports pharmaceuticals to almost 50 countries worldwide.

Among the speakers the Entrepreneur in Residence has brought on board are Clonmel native Patrick Joy, founder of Suretank in Dunleer, Co. Louth, which is the world's largest supplier of containers and tanks for the offshore oil and gas sector. Patrick was winner of the EY Entrepreneur of The Year in 2013 and Clodagh Cavanagh, Chief Executive Officer of Abbey Machinery in Nenagh, one of Ireland’s leading agri-sector manufacturing brands.

Those from outside the county who will speak include David Walsh, co-founder of Netwatch – the remote CCTV security camera monitoring company that employs 550 staff and services 250,000 customers; Colum O’Sullivan of ‘Cully & Sully’ soups; Rachel Doyle, founder of the Arboretum in Carlow and Louise Grubb, former CEO and co-founder of NutriScience.

Looking ahead to Friday’s event, Ms Barry said that it will raise the bar again for Clonmel’s reputation as a premier location for business start-ups. 

“Questum is open now for five years and it is really going from strength to strength. When LIT and Tipperary County Council set out on this partnership, we wanted to turn Clonmel into a major start-up town in Ireland and we are well on the way to doing so.  We really have an excellent ecosystem established in the centre and generally in Clonmel and across Tipp. Having Tom Brennan on board as Entrepreneur in Residence has been a huge plus and the line-up he has managed to pull together for Friday is further evidence of that.”

There are currently nine businesses operating out of Questum, among them healthcare company Shorla Pharma, one of the most talked-about early stage Irish companies today and winner – out of 1,600 companies – of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur Award; award winning independent film makers Anú Pictures, which produced the highly acclaimed ‘Camino by the Sea’ and Theradep, a company that has spun-in from Silicon Valley and last month was one of 16 companies to share in a €65m fund for ground-breaking projects under Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund.

 Said Ms Barry:  “There’s huge excitement about what we are doing here at Questum and, moreover, what individual businesses are doing here. Friday is going to be a great opportunity for those businesses and, indeed, others around the county that will attend.

“From the moment we confirmed the event, we’ve had great interest and won’t have an empty seat on Friday.”