Draining Silicon Docks

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Screen Shot 2015-05-12 at 10.45.05Grand Canal Dock – part of Dublin’s ‘Silicon Dock’ tech neighbourhood

 

Stephen Conmy, of Digital Times, writes:

“There has been “untold damage done to the Irish start-up ecosystem” since the introduction of the revamped Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme in 2011.

This is the view of Ian Lucey an investor with 40 investments in Irish startups, who organised a recent conference held at the Wayra startup accelerator.”

“Since the introduction of the Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme (EII) in place of the Business Expansion Scheme (BES), the amount claimed by start-ups has dropped by two-thirds from €41m in 2011 to €16m in 2013.”

“Paul Jenkinson, managing partner at Jenson Seed fund gave a presentation on how to “hack the UK system” and the advantages of the UK system in comparison to the Irish one.

The conference also heard that while the Irish government introduced the counterproductive EII, in the UK, the British government changed its equivalent of EII, called (SEIS) the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme. This change led to a jump that almost tripled the investment in start-ups overnight.”

“If lean, agile Irish startups have to move to Silicon Roundabout in the UK to survive they might as well know the facts,” suggests Lucey.”

Anyone?

Start-ups in Ireland told it’s better to seek support in the UK (Digital Times)

Pic: Newsfour.ie

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3 thoughts on “Draining Silicon Docks

  1. Sinabhfuil

    Same happened when a useful BES-style film investment scheme was withdrawn – suddenly all the actors were waiters and all the directors were call centre robots, while film investment flowed up to Northern Ireland as if someone had tilted the country. Madness.

  2. Supercrazyprices

    Still don’t know why it’s not called Digital Docks.

    Anyway, a change of policy can either close down / open up an entire industry in a matter of weeks or months. All these business are fluid so thinking that you’re building a lasting industry in any one place is delusional.

    Within a year all those miniature BMX bikes and WW2 baby prams will be on the scrapyard down in Ringsend.

  3. Timble

    But once the rich can write their income taxes off against schemes like these again it will all be ok. Tech is in a major investment bubble as it is.
    This is when the trouble starts. X is doing Y, we need to do that too. Same thing happened with property.

    The problem with EIIS is that it is not as generous to the investor would like. Bad rational for investing in a company

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