Chinese tech and telecoms giant Huawei itself began as a start-up and wants to share its entrepreneurial know-how with emerging Irish businesses.
Ten Irish start-ups have been selected by Huawei and Dogpatch Labs to take part in a three-week scale-up bootcamp.
Designed to help them grow and scale their businesses internationally, the programme is the result of a new partnership between the Dotpatch and the Chinese digital giant.
“Ireland should be a launching point for start-ups with global expansion being the ultimate goal”
The companies involved are Empeal, Tracworx, Little Red Edu, Helgen, Graphite Note LTD, Halosos, Energy Elephant, Xpanse AI, Sensipass, and Defactor and come from a variety of sectors including SaaS, MedTech, Fintech and more.
The programme will kick off at the end of this month (October 2022), and will run for three weeks, with one intensive day of workshops each week. It will be held between Galway (Portershed) and Dublin (Dogpatch Labs).
Dogpatch Labs will provide the start-ups with entrepreneurial mentorship, workshops on international sales and funding, and industry networking opportunities. The programme will culminate in a final Showcase Day in Dublin, where the 10 start-ups will showcase their businesses to key stakeholders and influencers including senior leadership from Huawei.
The move comes on the heels of Huawei revealing plans to create 200 new jobs in Ireland at its new Huawei Cloud operation.
Start-ups to scale-ups
Huawei Ireland CEO Tony Yangxu said that Huawei is a company that began as a start-up – it is passionate about supporting Ireland’s start-up community to grow, innovate and succeed on the global stage like it has.
This programme will provide a launchpad to deploy the business, to access new markets and customers. It will also allow the companies to interact with thought leaders from Huawei and to learn from other Irish founders who had successfully scaled and launched internationally. Expert mentoring from industry experts will be provided by participation in interactive workshops.
“Globally, through Huawei Cloud infrastructure, we are helping start-ups to grow, develop new products, and expand into new markets and we will bring this global expertise to Irish start-ups. We will enable Irish start-ups to scale by giving them access to cloud-native, AI, big data, and other technologies. In addition, we will give start-ups taking part in the programme the opportunity to meet experts and investors from across the business in Huawei.”
“Dogpatch Labs has demonstrated, over the last few years, how a vibrant tech community can powerfully accelerate the growth of start-ups. The quality of ideas for this programme, from regions all over Ireland, has been outstanding, and I’m looking forward to collaborating closely with Huawei to bring real value to these 10 start-ups.
“Ireland should be a launching point for start-ups with global expansion being the ultimate goal. This programme can give access to critical markets both West and East for founders to scale to new heights.”
Ireland has a developing start-up ecosystem with an increasing number of innovative indigenous companies, particularly in the software space, making their mark on the global stage. Participation in this programme will allow the 10 participants to engage with Ireland’s largest tech community where they can meet and learn from a diverse mix of entrepreneurs, founders and freelancers as part of accelerating their growth.
The new programme will allow the start-ups to draw on Huawei’s expertise and wider network from around Europe and Asia. This includes:
- Expertise: Expert speakers from around the ecosystem and Huawei including Jacqueline Shi, Vice President of Huawei Cloud Computing, and Tony Yangxu, CEO of Huawei Ireland.
- Market access: Start-ups will gain access to Huawei’s digital network, with a footprint across 170 countries and deep network access to Asian market, along with international business exposure via its global network and partners.
- Tech support: Start-ups will also receive technical support from Huawei Ireland and West Europe in the form of cloud credits, as well as access to Huawei R&D.
- Funding Opportunities: Huawei’s venture arm, Hubble, will be present at the Showcase along with VCs from the Dogpatch Labs network.
Want to know more about the participating start-ups? The programme showcase will take place on Friday, 11 November in Dogpatch Labs from 12:00 – 14:00. Sign up to attend the showcase at https://dogpatch.click/huawei
Main image at top: Emily O’Gorman, Programme Manager, Dogpatch Labs; Tony Yangxu, CEO, Huawei Ireland; Minister for Trade Promotion, Digital, and Company Regulation Dara Calleary. TD; and Dave Power, Director of Innovation at Dogpatch Labs
