Year for Growth at The Digital Hub with a further 35 New Companies established

• New companies including Eventbrite, PriceSpy, VSWare and Athena Media, Creative Nation.
• Expansion and new jobs created at existing companies including Xwerx, eMaint EMEA and Software Design.
• Plans announced for refurbishment of new building to deliver over 10,000 square foot of office space in 2015.

2014 was a bumper year for growth and job creation within The Digital Hub enterprise cluster, with 35 new (and returning) companies setting up offices within The Digital Hub’s eight buildings located in the Liberties area of Dublin city, creating a total of 150 new jobs. Expectations for The Digital Hub in 2015 are also very positive with employment growth in the enterprise cluster expected to increase. This will see the number of people directly employed within the digital cluster rising to over 700 people by the end of 2015.

Some notable companies to join The Digital Hub this year were international organisations Eventbrite, the San Francisco founded online event management and planning business, KeyedIn Solutions, a Cloud technology company with headquarters in the USA that helps customers engage in cloud and mobile based business solutions and technologies and PriceSpy, an online shopping product and price comparison service.  Among the indigenous Irish companies locating in The Digital Hub in 2014 were Creative Nation, a Multi-Channel Network (MCN) on YouTube; VSWare, a design-led, cloud and mobile-based school administration platform, and beActive, an award winning and EMMY-nominated TV, Film and Digital studio. Athena Media, a multi-award winning transmedia production and consultancy company, also returned in 2014 to The Digital Hub after a brief hiatus having started out at The Digital Hub in 2004. This year they became the first Irish production company to join MediaCity UK – the international media hub in Manchester.

Companies previously established and operating within The Digital Hub have also been growing and expanding throughout the year; Xwerx, a user experience design agency, and eMaint EMEA, a developer of computerised maintenance management software (CMMS) solutions, both moved to new office spaces to accommodate their growing teams, while application and platform development company, Software Design – a company started by two brothers in 2006 – now employs 17 people.

On the back of this exciting growth, The Digital Hub also announced plans for the refurbishment of a 19th Century Grainstore building, adding an additional 10,650 square feet of space to the cluster. This development is set to be completed by the second half of 2015 and will provide additional office space to meet the demand from scaling existing and new businesses looking to locate in The Digital Hub.

Additionally, the restoration and refurbishment of a number of historic 19th century buildings at 1 Crane Street and 7 & 8 Thomas Street is due to be completed by the end of 2015. When finished these beautiful examples of early 19th century homes will have retail units at ground level with offices in the original living space above.

Gerry Macken, CEO, The Digital Hub, is extremely pleased with developments to date and looks forward with optimism for 2015: “I really see 2014 as a key year of growth for The Digital Hub. 35 new companies joined our cluster, creating 150 new jobs as well as a wealth of networking opportunities. This brings the total number of companies to 89 and the total number employed onsite to almost 650, meaning that this really has been one of our busiest years to date.  We are also seeing demand again for a whole range of new jobs and skillsets in the digital tech sector from within our digital enterprise community, with current job positions to be filled for web and graphic designers, marketing professionals, video editors and software developers among many others.

“We are now looking forward to 2015 and what our expansion will mean for Ireland’s digital economy as our companies continue to grow. We also greatly anticipate the completion of our Grainstore building development in the second half of 2015 and the opportunities the additional 10,650 square feet of office space will create. We hope and plan to grow further in 2015, staying at the forefront of digital technology in Ireland.”

Other 2014 Highlights

Digital Initiatives

The Digital Hub and its member companies have continued to remain at the forefront of digital and technology development in Ireland. In 2014, a health tech partnership was announced with the Health Innovation Hub Cork (HIH Cork) as part of The Digital Hub’s ongoing Connected Health initiative to promote and support digital solutions to healthcare problems. Patient engagement and education technologies, video prescriptions and online therapeutic programmes are amongst the products and services being developed by tech companies supported by our new partnership, and The Digital Hub is very excited to see this project develop further into 2015. One Digital Hub based company currently benefitting from The Digital Hub and HIH Cork partnerships is Maithú IT Solutions. Maithu has created a range of medical applications under the brand name Medical eGuides, their Hand Hygiene Auditing App is being trialled in Cork and Waterford hospitals as part of a HIH initiative to tackle the problem of Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI’s).

Also through their partnership both The Digital Hub and HIH Cork, are now project partners of the new European Institute for Innovation and Technology (EIT) Health KIC – InnoLife – a consortium of 144 European companies, research institutes and universities, who recently won EU backing to promote healthy living and active aging.

2014 also saw The Digital Hub continue with its innovative learning programmes. The Schools Broadband Exemplar Project, which studies the impact of high speed broadband on Irish schools, held a showcase of its findings in August with extremely positive results that will help inform government policy in education and technology. The hugely successful Future Creators programme, run jointly with the nearby National College of Art and Design (NCAD) entered its third year, with 24 young people receiving their certificates of completion at NCAD in June after working on projects such as mobile apps, interactive gaming apps and short films. An online survey undertaken in 2014 of all participants up to that point, revealed overwhelmingly positive feedback on the programme.

The Digital Hub is committed to improving digital inclusion in Dublin 8 and following a successful application to the Government’s BenefIT Programme, The Digital Hub has been awarded funding to work with local partners to deliver free digital training programmes for non-liners and SME businesses in the Dublin 8 community that have limited experience with digital devices and the Internet.

Industry Awards

The companies within The Digital Hub have had a busy year for awards and achievements throughout 2014. Three companies – Eventbrite, Maithu and Software Design – received IIA Dot IE Net Visionary Awards in September. November was a busy month, as tech news website Silicon Republic won a #RaboTweeties award and no fewer than four companies picked up an Appy award: Athena Media, BullorBear, Eventbrite and PriceSpy Ireland. Two companies were also shortlisted for aneircom Spider award in November: Software Design for ‘Agency of the Year’ and BullorBear for ‘Best App’.

The Digital Hub Development Agency itself was presented with a Net Visionary Award in 2014, for the ‘Very Best Place to be – Accelerator |Incubator | Space’. The criteria for this award was that the nominated business space must show a true understanding of the culture and needs of Ireland’s thriving start-up community, and provide dynamic environments for start-up and smaller businesses that facilitate peer networking and support, mentoring and fostering collaboration.

In June Athena Media became the first Irish independent production company to win four awards for multiple projects at the New York Festival Radio Awards.  These awards are considered to be the ‘Oscars’ of radio.

Developing a Vibrant Enterprise Cluster Community Model

The Digital Hub has established itself as an internationally recognised example of best practice in enterprise cluster development, open to learning and sharing through strategic partnerships with other players committed to digital enterprise development.  During the course of the year, The Digital Hub continued to host a series of enterprise speaking events and visiting high-level delegations, including representatives from Mexico, who were keen to ascertain how The Digital Hub model could be applied to projects in Mexico.

A short video has been compiled detailing some of the highlights of 2014, which can be viewed here:

ENDS

Editors Notes:

For further information please contact:
Frans van Cauwelaert frans.vancauwelaert@ogilvy.com 01 669 0155 / 087 947 6743

About The Digital Hub

Based in the historic Liberties area of Dublin city centre, The Digital Hub is an enterprise cluster for growing technology companies.  Home to 89 established businesses and employing almost 650 people, The Digital Hub is the largest cluster of digital media, technology and Internet businesses in Ireland, providing a space for indigenous enterprises such as Athena Media, Maithú IT Solutions, Software Design and Sonru to scale and grow. The Digital Hub is also the EMEA headquarters of major international companies like eMaint, Eventbrite, and Etsy, and is home to industry organisations such as the Irish Internet Association, NDRC and Silicon Republic.

Since the project’s inception, close to 200 companies have progressed through the enterprise cluster at The Digital Hub, generating thousands of skilled jobs. Some well-established alumni include Amazon, Distilled Media Group (Daft.ie), Havok, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (Riverdeep), Kavaleer and MTT.

The Digital Hub Development Agency is the Irish state agency that manages The Digital Hub.  Further information is available at: www.thedigitalhub.com or on Twitter: @TheDigitalHub.