We (Eamon, Sean, Moneesh, Paul) are all back at base Fillmore after a punishing 7 to 7 session on the DemoPit. Unlike normal conferences there is no let up at TC50 so ourselves and VidSchool were cracking our jawbones all day long.

Exhausting but very rewarding work. Both companies recieved huge validation for their offerings and like most SV events I have attended our calendars are full for the next few days.

The straight juice, there is no better place to launch a tech company.

Python Program to scrape the CRO Database

1-September-2009 ~ Joe ~ 5 Comments

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the CRO database in the past few weeks, so I wrote this python script called croscraper.py to do a quick lookup on companies.

Usage is:

backus:~/Documents/workspace/CloudSplit/src/croscrape jpd$ python croscraper.py -h
Usage: croscraper.py <list of files>

Options:
 --version             show program's version number and exit
 -h, --help            show this help message and exit
 -c COMPANY, --company=COMPANY
 return information on company named <company>
 -d, --debug           turn on debugging
backus:~/Documents/workspace/CloudSplit/src/croscrape jpd$

To look up a specific company name or part of a name try,

backus:~/Documents/workspace/CloudSplit/src/croscrape jpd$ python croscraper.py -c cloud
{'Number': '44950', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'BLUE CLOUD LIMITED', 'Address': '46, LOWER LEESON STREET, DUBLIN 2.  '}
{'Number': '332318', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD 9 DESIGN LIMITED', 'Address': '21 CLOISTER AVENUE BLACKROCK CO DUBLIN '}
{'Number': '102707', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD DANCER LIMITED', 'Address': '18, MERRION SQUARE, DUBLIN 2.  '}
{'Number': '&', 'Type': '361040', 'Name': 'CLOUD ELECTRICAL ', 'Address': ' COMMUNICATION SERVICES LIMITED'}
{'Number': '472475', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD IGNITE LIMITED', 'Address': 'BAYVIEW HOUSE 49 NORTH STRAND ROAD DUBLIN 3 '}
{'Number': '466027', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'THE CLOUD NETWORKS (IRELAND) LIMITED', 'Address': "C/O O'MAHONY DONNELLY 10 MCCURTAIN HILL CLONAKILTY CO CORK"}
{'Number': '328355', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD NINE BEDS LIMITED', 'Address': 'Unit T1 Coolmine Industrial Estate Clonsilla Road Dublin 15'}
{'Number': '124102', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD NINE HAIRLINE (SALES) LIMITED', 'Address': 'BALLYMOUNT ROAD, DUBLIN 12.  '}
{'Number': '55964', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'CLOUD NINE PROMOTIONS LIMITED', 'Address': '********NO ADDRESS DETAILS******* ********NO ADDRESS DETAILS******* ********NO ADDRESS DETAILS******* ********NO ADDRESS DETAILS*******'}
{'Number': '311145', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'DILL CLOUD LIMITED', 'Address': '6 RICHMOND ROAD DRUMCONDRA DUBLIN 3 '}
{'Number': '316954', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'MUSHROOM CLOUD PRODUCTIONS LIMITED', 'Address': '3RD FLOOR WESTLAND SQUARE DUBLIN 2 '}
{'Number': '44954', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'RED CLOUD LIMITED', 'Address': '6, CAVENDISH ROW, DUBLIN.  '}
{'Number': '433681', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'ROLLIN CLOUD LIMITED', 'Address': '44 BELGRAVE SQUARE WEST RATHMINES DUBLIN 6 '}
{'Number': '175728', 'Type': 'Company', 'Name': 'SOLAR CLOUD LIMITED', 'Address': '38, ENNAFORT ROAD, RAHENY, DUBLIN 5. '}
backus:~/Documents/workspace/CloudSplit/src/croscrape jpd$

Gee look at all those cloud companies 🙂

It is left as an exercise to the reader to port the program to Google App Engine or get more data out of the CRO. I may do some more work on this in the future.

You will need Python installed to run this program. It has only been tested on a Mac.

CloudSplit – Real Time Cloud Analytics

1-September-2009 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment

Myself and Eamon Leonard (with the gang from EchoLibre) have been cooking up a startup to capitalise on the huge growth in demand for Cloud Computing.

Our guess is that understanding the cost of the cloud is going to exercise people greatly in the future and CLoudSplit has been created to address that need.

CloudSplit will,

Track your cloud spend in real time
Give you a clear understanding of what you are spending and where
Send you alerts if your spending exceeds a threshold you define
Initiate a stoploss to cut off your cloud spend should you exceed your stop loss threshold

We plan to expand on these services in the future and are targeting users of Infrastructure as a Service products such as Amazon and Azure. So if you use those services and you want to understand your costs swing on over to CloudSplit.com and register your interest.

You can also follow us on twitter.

1.6 billion dollars of Irish Technology Exits since 2000

14-August-2009 ~ Joe ~ 8 Comments

Chris Horn was looking for information on technology company exits since 2000. I had some data and with the help of some twitter buddies I grabbed a bunch of others last night.

Some of the numbers are in Euros (very few) and some exits are undisclosed so we can say with some degree of certainty that the the total exit values are,

1.6 billion dollars

That sounds like a lot of money (well it used to until our developers and banks blew 90bn) but we need to factor in a few other things get a proper understanding of whether this represents a real return on investment.

How much was invested (we could probably total EI and IVCA figures to get this number)
How much employment was generated (this represents tax income to the exchequer and economic activity)
How many are still employing people in Ireland today

Only when we have this data will we understand the true meaning of the 1.6bn USD.

Incidentally most of the data was retrieved from the excellent Thomas Crosbie Holdings Archives. I recommend site specific searching of this archive use the google site directive. For example to find stuff on Iona,

site:http://archives.tcm.ie/ iona

I have been tagging and information I find with the delicious.com tag #irishexits. Can I suggest anyone else looking do the same.

Successful Technology Exits in Ireland since 2000

13-August-2009 ~ Joe ~ 1 Comment

Here is a public google spreadsheet with a list of all the exits I can hunt down on the web to date since 2006.

Please post a comment if you have come across any I have missed. Ideally also add them to delicious with the delicious tag "#irishexits.

Framework 7 (FP7) Funding Information

12-August-2009 ~ Joe ~ Leave a comment


	FP7 Ireland Newsletter

Home Newsletter
Dear Joe Drumgoole, This newsletter updates you on relevant FP7 events, news and calls. Kind Regards National Support Office for FP7

Events

Events in the areas you have expressed an interest in:

SMEs Connecting with Framework Programme 7 – Dublin
Dates: 27/08/2009

Enterprise Ireland will host a series of 3 information seminars from the end August to start of September highlighting the opportunities and support structures for Irish SMEs to become involved in projects within the EU 7th Framework Programme. The schedule of event is as follows: Dublin on the 27th August 2009, Galway on the 2nd September 2009 and Cork on the 7th September 2009.