Three Irish companies – Aperilink Ltd (Dublin),DiaNia Technologies Ltd (Galway) and IRIS Advanced Engineering Ltd (Kerry) – have been selected in the latest round of Horizon 2020 SME Instrument (Phase 1) to receive €50,000 each for their innovative ideas. The companies will use the money to finance feasibility studies and can also request up to three days of business coaching.

This brings to 30 the total number of Irish SMEs funded so far under the SME Instrument of Horizon 2020 (25 Phase 1 receiving €50.000 each and five Phase 2 receiving up to €2.5 million each).

Ireland top of the class with 19% success rate in 2014 for winning funding under the SME Instrument of Horizon 2020, the EU’s research and innovation funding programme. 

Sinead Kenny, co-founder of DiaNia Technologies Ltd in Galway which was set up in 2013 explains “We are delighted to have been selected for funding under the EU’s SME Instrument for our project on Advanced Extrusion Technologies for use in Catheter Based Medical Devices.

ExtruLubTM is an innovative, disruptive extrusion technology with the ability to change the surface of a catheter without affecting core device properties, thereby leading to cost containment for the manufacturer and profile reduction of the end product.  As well as the €50.000, which will help our company to commercialise this, our initial product offering, our selection by the EU also gives us access to a network of truly great mentors whom we look forward to engaging with.

It’s a great boost to our confidence to have been selected from amongst 1,569 other SMEs from right across Europe – we are one of 161 which were selected in this round and only one of three from Ireland!  Once we had our ideas and vision clearly set out we set about applying to Horizon 2020.  It was a very straight forward application we submitted our application in March 2015 and heard the good news last week.”

The three projects which have received funding today are:

• Aperilink Ltd in Dublin
  Topologically dynamic scaled out data centre networks for energy efficiency and management (A-STREAM)
• DiaNia Technologies Ltd in Galway
  Commercialisation of Advanced Extrusion Technologies Delivering Disruptive Innovation for the Next Generation of Catheter Based Medical Devices (ExtruLub) Website:http://www.gmit.ie/innovation-business-centre/sinead-kenny-diania-technologies
• IRIS Advanced Engineering Ltd in Kerry
  An IR-spectroscopy-based platform for the rapid integration and customisation of affordable, real-time monitoring solutions for the food and pharmaceutical industry (VISUM)