Irish government urged to heed entrepreneurs to rebuild economy

million in funding, and a company called Peloton.

Daly writes that most recently, Fitzmaurice has been executive chairman of Dutch firm Intivation, which has developed a solar-powered mobile phone and has a deal with Digicel, the mobile operator owned by Denis O’Brien, with a presence in twenty countries. As well as his work with ePlanet, he is also working on an early stage company focusing on mobile advertising in emerging markets.

Fitzmaurice said that ePlanet saw about 1,000 investment opportunities in Europe each year, but typically made only about two investments a year in Europe. ‘‘The quality [of start-up companies] is improving greatly in Ireland, and people have a better understanding of the process. The good news is that we are more skilled and efficient at it than we were ten years ago. But, compared to some countries, we are still poor at doing this,” he said.

Fitzmaurice said that ePlanet had invested in ninety companies through its two funds and was realistic about their prospects. ‘‘We expect a third to got out of business, a third to breakeven, and a third to make a lot of money for us,” he said.

He cited the example of Skype, which made ‘‘a profit of hundreds of millions’’ for ePlanet when it was bought by eBay.

He said that, while the government had to be accountable for the funding it put into research, people needed to understand it would not all deliver a return. ‘‘The government has to understand that it is building a portfolio of investments, and sometimes there will be unmitigated disasters. Some will be spectacularly successful, some will not.”

He said, however, that it was a ‘‘great time’’ to be starting a business. ‘‘We see very high quality companies coming through at times like this because only the very best can survive,” he said.

Fitzmaurice said there were three ‘‘key enabling technologies’’ in the world — biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information and communications technology. ‘‘They are important on their own but when they converge, they open up new important possibilities, such as new materials, artificial intelligence, modified biological entities.”

Those technologies could be used to address what he described as the three key drivers: enhancing the ‘‘health span’’ of the population; giving people the tools to work more creatively; and sustaining the ‘‘fragile ecosystem’’ of the world.

Fitzmaurice, who also chairs the commercialization committee at the Center for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nano devices at Trinity College, was a speaker at an event as part of Nano week last week.