Author's entries

This video looks at the experience of entrepreneurs using the Azure platform. Aidan Gallagher, CEO Inishtech & Conor O’Riordan, CEO Tradefacilitate give us a quick overview to why they chose to use Azure for their businesses and the benefits cloud computing brings.  

Talking to start-ups, there’s often one reoccurring challenge: getting early investment. To find out more we talked with the CEO of Tradefacilitate  Conor O’Riordan, & Aidan Gallagher, the CEO of Inishtech  who have both had to work hard to win investment to grow their business. To accompany their views, and to offer a slightly different perspective, we also spoke with Diane...

In the first of our 3 videos on the EUGA Irish launch in Dublin we hear from Nicky Martin, Managing Director - Affect Network, who explains the process that the start-ups go through to receive their European funding. Nicky Martin gives an interesting perspective on the EUGA process, his company supports the companies throughout the process of assessing suitability and grant applications. I think this is an...

The 6th BizSpark Summit was a great success, with some dynamic speakers including Sillicon Valley entrepreneur and host of the summit, Guy Kawasaki. It was fantastic to see and experience the buzz from this event as starts-ups discussed with potential investors, as well as hundreds of people twittering their impressions throughout the day, either as they watched in person, or followed the live stream...

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Ireland is one of Europe’s key hubs for innovation, offering an environment for tech entrepreneurs.It is crucial that in Ireland and the rest of Europe, SMEs can operate in an environment supportive of innovation.

The Italian company, Threeplicate, is the latest European start-up to be named Startup of the day in the Startup Zone, the online space for all things BizSpark related (p.s. BizSpark is a Microsoft programme which helps start-ups get off the ground by providing them with software, support and a network of contacts to help improve their visibility to the wider world.)

I recently read this article on BizSpark in Ireland on siliconrepublic.com (check out their website, there’s some great tech articles) and it draws upon interesting points relating to what we at Microsoft are doing with the BizSpark program.

As we’ve been doing for a few months now, we once again bring you European companies that have been selected as start-up of the day on Microsoft’s StartupZone, the online space for companies in BizSpark.

Le Web is the biggest web event in Europe, and the organisers have increasingly looked to make start-ups the stars of the show, giving great companies the visibility they need to get them past that initial gestation period when so many don’t make it.

We’ve regularly been reporting on European start-ups featured in the Microsoft StartupZone, a site which showcases and brings together Bizspark companies (BizSpark being a programme we’ve developed to help out start-ups with access to software and support.)

While competitions are great to win, they are also a great way for start-ups to network with investors and possible partners, hone their presentation skills and generate some visibility. That’s why we were pleased to sponsor the Eurecan European Venture Contest which drew to a close this month.