Connected newsletter: Tines takes on further investment as Stripe rolls out new features
Connected at the Business Post is your source for the news that matters in technology and innovation, all told from an Irish perspective
What a week it has been for Irish tech. Big investments and appointments were very much the order of business over the last few days.
Among the stories brought to you by the Business Post was news that Tines, the software automation firm, has raised an additional $50 million, and reported a 200 per cent jump in annual recurring revenues since its last raise two years ago. We’ll have a full interview with Tines chief executive Eoin Hinchy on the website and in print over the weekend so stay tuned for that.
As if the Tines news wasn't enough, Irish co-founded biotech firm Ochre Bio, which uses machine learning to analyse data from diseased and healthy livers, revealed it had signed a $1.3 billion deal with a German drugmaker. Here’s an interview we did with chief executive Jack O’Meara last year.
Talking of interviews, here’s one with the wonderfully-named Zig Serafin, chief executive of Qualtrics, from the latest issue of Connected magazine, which returns this weekend.
On Thusday, we revealed that Workday has jettisoned plans to build a new European headquarters at Grangegorman.
If proof were needed that Irish techies are held in high regard both here and abroad comes news that Dave O’Flanagan, who co-founded and led Boxever, has been appointed as chief executive of Sitecore, the company that bought the Irish start-up in a $156m deal two years ago.
Staying with appointments and Google confirmed that Vanessa Hartley is its new country manager for Ireland. She replaces Adaire Fox-Martin, who was recently headhunted to become chief executive and president of Equinix, the data centre giant.
On the subject of data centres, Vantage, a Colorado-headquartered developer, on Wednesday announced plans to invest over €1 billion in a new campus in Dublin, which it said will be one of the biggest in Europe.
In related news, Digital Realty, the data centre operator, has partnered with energy management company Enel X to allow its facilities in Ireland to feed energy back to the electricity grid during periods of high demand.
And in yet more talk on data centres, I was recently in Paris where I toured Digital Realty’s humongous campus, and to hear more about concerns on how AI is going to lead to an even bigger surge in energy use. Here is my article on the visit, which also appears in the latest issue of Connected.
Stripe has rolled out 50 new features across its product suite as chief executive Patrick Collison said the company was well positioned to help users deal with an “increasingly complex payments landscape”.
One of our biggest stories from the weekend was that plans for a new tech accelerator for women entrepreneurs are under discussion with Microsoft Ireland and KPMG among the backers.
In yet more positive news, Google’s Dublin location is among those earmarked to gain from an overhaul of the tech giants finance operation, with the company intending to create centralised 'hubs' at a small pool of its global offices, including here.
Now, I’m not saying that we wield such power that Big Tech bows before us but just two days after publishing this piece about how publishers and advertisers have concerns about plans by Google to do away with third-party cookies, the company delayed the move.
TikTok is rarely out of the news these days. Earlier this week the company told its employees it will fight back against a measure forcing either a ban or a divestiture of the Chinese-owned app in the US.
Weekly Newsletter
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In other news:
• Central Bank seeks power to wind-up ailing e-money firms
• CurrencyFair ‘could be forced’ to cease payments for a year over alleged external fraud
• Shares in Meta plummet as it forecasts spending spree
Finally, did I mention that Connected is back this weekend? In one of our most anticipated issues, we’ll be revealing our annual 30 under 30 ranking in which we present the hottest young guns in Irish tech. You don’t want to miss it.
Pick up the Business Post in print or read it online at businesspost.ie
Send on your news and views to connected@businesspost.ie
All the best,
Charlie
Quote of the week
‘“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
TikTok CEO Show Zi Chew strikes a defiant tone amid the passing of a measure that could ban the popular video-sharing app in the US
Maintain the mainframe: Why old-school hardware is still of key importance
Eamonn Carey: Deepfakes are becoming very real, I even got caught out by one
In Silicon Valley you can be worth billions and its not enough (New York Times)
Dating apps are collecting more of your information than you think (Washington Post)
