UCD today announced that NovaUCD, the University’s Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs, is to expand its capacity to house early-stage start-ups by over 50% with a €6.5 million development project.

The project to renovate and extend the facility’s east courtyard commenced recently and is expected to be completed within 12 months.

NovaUCD, based on UCD’s Belfield campus, officially opened in October 2003 and is currently home to over 25 start-up companies. These companies have either spun-out of UCD research programmes or have spun-in to locate at NovaUCD in order to collaborate with the University.

Since opening the hub has supported some 225 companies, which have raised over €200 million in equity funding, to develop and grow. As the home of UCD’s technology transfer team, NovaUCD has also registered some 750 invention disclosures, filed over 250 priority patent applications and licenced over 170 technologies to companies such as Amdocs, Amryt and Glanbia.

Tom Flanagan, UCD’s Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation said, “The NovaUCD facility has been running at full capacity for several years now. There is an ongoing and significant demand from ambitious entrepreneurs who want to locate their start-ups at NovaUCD to leverage our ecosystem of experienced mentors, founders, alumni, investors and sponsors who can help them grow their businesses globally. By joining the NovaUCD community these start-ups can also take advantage of access to our world-class researchers, facilities and talent across the UCD campus.”

“The development of the east courtyard will enable us to increase our capacity by over 50% and when completed NovaUCD will be able to accommodate up to 450 people.”

NovaUCD is located in a mid-18th century house, formerly known as Merville House. It currently comprises of a restored main building along with the restoration and extension of the west courtyard. The current expansion will see the renovation and extension of a second, or east, courtyard.

NovaUCD currently has 1,425m2 of licensable space in a total of 40 units, labs and co-working space. The newly developed courtyard will result in 800m2 of additional licensable space, and will include a total of 23 business units, labs and co-working space.

The internal courtyard area will be designed as a new meeting and social space for client companies.

Some of the best known start-ups supported by NovaUCD include spin-out companies, ChangingWorlds, BiancaMed, Equinome and Logentries and spin-in companies, EnBIO and Genomics Medicine Ireland.

Among the companies currently located at NovaUCD are; Carrick Therapeutics, OncoMark and THEYA Healthcare.

Six private sector sponsors; AIB, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers and Xilinx contributed 75% of the €10 million raised to develop the first two phases of NovaUCD, with the balance of funds provided by Enterprise Ireland and UCD.

The architects for this current project are Kavanagh Tuite Architects, who were architects for the original design of the NovaUCD facility.

Main Picture: At NovaUCD Tom Flanagan, UCD Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation. (Photo: Nick Bradshaw, Fotonic).