Karl Fitzpatrick, Chevron College
Headquartered in Wexford town, Chevron College, a QQI accredited e-learning provider of further and higher education programmes, employs more than 250 lecturers and another 135 staff. Karl Fitzpatrick is its president and chief executive.
The college provides critical skills to more than 15,000 students annually and secures State funding for students to complete programmes in high-growth sectors including IT, sustainability, healthcare, and childcare.
It focuses on the delivery programmes in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), offshore wind, and leadership.
What lightbulb moment prompted you to start-up in business?
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The lightbulb moment occurred on a flight to Dubai. Having purchased a leading Irish business magazine in Dublin airport prior to the flight, I read about Building Energy Rating (BER) and the need for thousands of people throughout Ireland to be trained as BER assessors. This provided the original idea, upon which Chevron College would ultimately be built.
What is your business model and what makes it unique?
Chevron’s convenient online delivery method, combined with access to a range of funding options, provides students with an opportunity to pursue their career goals while continuing to work.
What was your back-to-the-wall moment and how did you overcome it?
The most challenging period occurred after I invested my life savings to acquire Chevron College from examinership following the economic crash. The journey to returning the business to profitability, without access to debt financing facilities, was a back against the wall moment.
What moment/deal would you cite as a turning point for the company?
The decision to become an online education provider. At that time, all further and higher education programmes were delivered in a traditional classroom environment.
Recognising that many learners were unable to participate in the further and higher education system, due to work or life commitments, I believed that online education would remove this barrier and significantly increase participation in lifelong learning.
To what extent does your business trade internationally?
Our future international growth plans will be centred on extending our current suite of programmes in the UK market and through acquiring higher education providers in Ireland and the UK.
The similarities between the education systems in both markets, combined with Chevron College’s experience and reputation, means that the UK market is a natural next step for the business.
Describe your growth funding path.
The growth of Chevron College will be funded through a combination of sources, which include the company’s financial reserves, debt finance from the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland and by securing investment through the Employment and Investment Incentive Scheme.
How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?
I envisage a significant number of mergers and acquisitions within the education market over the next three years.
With increased regulatory compliance requirements, the age profile of education business owners, along with growing interest from private equity firms, I believe that these factors will drive significant consolidation within the industry.
From Chevron’s perspective, the target is to reach €100 million in annual revenue and to occupy market leader positions in critical skills education in both Ireland and Britain.
What are your annual revenues and profits?
The estimated revenue for Chevron College in 2025 is €20 million, with a projected profit of €3 million.
What are you doing to disrupt, innovate and improve the products or services you offer?
Chevron College is an early adopter of pioneering technologies within the education space.
This is demonstrated within our ever-evolving teaching methodologies, whereby gamification, the metaverse, AI-driven personalisation, interactive storytelling and simulations, augmented reality and virtual reality are seamlessly integrated into new programmes.
How are you deploying AI in your business?
We have been an early user of AI and employ an AI and automation manager. We have developed an AI-powered workflow management system to reduce the administrative tasks associated with the delivery of programmes.
We are also using AI-powered adaptive learning to respond in real time to student performance and preferences. AI is being used in data driven quality assurance functions, which provides analytics to measure outcomes, satisfaction and progression.
We also currently have AI powered assessment software under development which will automate the correction of coursework.
What is the most common mistake you see entrepreneurs make?
Often entrepreneurs can possess the necessary technical skills that the business requires, but they often fail to appropriately invest in sales and marketing resources.
Larry Bass, Shinawil
Larry Bass was 13-years-old when he started out in the entertainment business through pirate radio, which led to a career as a sound and lighting technician in the music world.
Shinawil is a 26-year-old film and television production company. The majority of its content has been non-fiction entertainment television, with shows like Popstars, You’re A Star, The Apprentice, Dragons’ Den, MasterChef, The Voice of Ireland and now Home of the Year and Dancing with the Stars.
While it has a core team of full-time staff, any one of its productions can have up to 200 people employed while it is shooting. It has its headquarters in Sandymount, Dublin, and an office in Belfast.
What prompted you to start-up in business?
I’ve always worked for myself from a very young age, and the founding of Shinawil came from a desire to make a documentary about the Dublin rock band Aslan.
With Aslan... Made in Dublin, Shinawil was born, not from a business plan, but from a huge desire to create the highest quality content.
What was your back-to-the-wall moment and how did you overcome it?
Within the first two years of starting the business, we were dealt a significant financial blow. A major client became a casualty of the dotcom crash – the day after we delivered a number of significant films to them. As a small production company, we were very exposed.
My founding partner left the business to pursue his career. Being married with four young children, I had little choice but to knuckle down and focus on finding new clients and new projects to move forward.
What deal would you cite as a game changer for the company?
In 2000, I came across the television format Popstars at a trade fair in Los Angeles. That one show completely changed the complexion of the business. Not only was it a commercial success, but it also connected me at an executive level with my business mentor and partners for the following years.
What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?
The worst piece of advice was around investing in technology, which evolves so rapidly. We’ve invested in various equipment based on seemingly sound advice, but even the wisest experts can be overtaken by the speed of change in the modern world.
Describe your growth funding path.
Our recent growth has been financed through internal company resources, with support from Enterprise Ireland in the post-Covid period.
Looking ahead, our future growth will be powered by new investment as part of the next phase of our company’s growth strategy. The need to invest in our team and develop new shows makes this an exciting opportunity for investors. We’re building Hollywood in Ireland.
How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?
One thing is certain: people are watching more content globally, and they’ll continue to do so on new platforms emerging every year. We must ensure we’re serving viewers across all of these platforms.
What are your annual revenues and profits?
Our turnover was €33 million in 2023 and €38 million in 2024. We’ve been growing rapidly and have reinvested most of our earnings into developing new content.
What are you doing to disrupt, innovate and improve?
We were first to introduce entertainment television formats and among the first to explore auxiliary revenue streams such as phone voting.
We’re committed to diversity, both in our business operations and in the stories we tell. In our drama productions, we’re creating new financing paths and partnerships. We also produced Ireland’s first virtual reality drama for Meta.
How are you deploying AI in your business and what impact has it had?
AI has instilled significant fear in our industry, particularly among actors and writers. At Shinawil, we will always prioritise working with the best practitioners in their fields, from writers and actors to craftspeople.
That said, AI can support nearly all of us in certain aspects of our work, and we must remain open to technological advances that help us work smarter, not harder. AI is already proving to be a game changer in areas like visual effects, post-production, and script analysis, and it’s likely to impact other parts of the industry in the near future.
Gareth Sheridan, Nutriband
Nutriband is a pharmaceutical company that was founded in Dublin in 2012 before relocating to Florida in 2016. Gareth Sheridan, who recently announced his intention to run for president and has stepped aside for now as chief executive, is its founder.
The company’s lead product is Aversa, which it describes as “abuse-deterrent transdermal technology”, which incorporates aversive agents to prevent the abuse, diversion, misuse, and accidental exposure of drugs with abuse potential, specifically opioids.
Its first application is its abuse-deterrent fentanyl transdermal patch, which it is developing to provide clinicians and patients with extended-release chronic pain relief. It is awaiting regulatory clearance in the US.
The company has operations in Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina, and recently began its expansion back to Dublin.
What lightbulb moment prompted you to start-up in business?
It was originally a thesis idea. I had noticed a patch that my dad wears and began wondering what other types of medications could be delivered that way that had not been explored yet. The thesis became a business plan, and Nutriband was registered in 2012.
Describe your business model and what makes your business unique.
We structured the company in a unique way, using capital markets and a public listing approach. We listed on the OTC Markets in 2016 and started using stock to purchase companies and technologies in place of cash.
This helped us to avoid raising expensive early capital and retain a major equity stake in the company today, even after an eventual qualification to list on the Nasdaq (in New York) in 2010.
We also do not develop new drug applications. We take existing generic medications and use our technologies to improve upon those and relaunch them as a branded product again.
What is your greatest business achievement to date?
Growing the company to a level where we qualified to list on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and getting to ring the opening bell.
What was your back-to-the-wall moment and how did you overcome it?
We almost got sued by the SEC (The US Securities and Exchange Commission) for an accidental erroneous disclosure in one of our filings while on the OTC markets.
At first, we thought it could be explained. However, it grew to the point where they were doubling down. We hired an excellent attorney with SEC experience and eventually settled the issue in a cease-and-desist, no-admit, no-deny agreement.
This led to our back-to-the-wall moment, where, while running on fumes financially, we received a rejection from Nasdaq in our first application.
After a couple of days of self-pity, we got back to work, raised some working capital with existing shareholders, and grew the company’s equity by $7.5 million (€6.4 million) over the course of the next year. We reapplied to list again successfully.
What moment would you cite as a turning point for the company?
Credibility provided by our Nasdaq listing and subsequent partnership with Kindeva Drug Delivery (formerly 3M Drug Delivery), where Kindeva supplied their generic approved fentanyl patch for us to add our technology to.
What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?
The worst advice was that banks and institutions have your company’s best interests at heart. I firmly believe that today, Wall Street is built on companies failing, not succeeding.
Describe your growth funding path.
We were reluctant to raise expensive capital early on and instead listed the company to use stock as an acquisition currency to grow. Our gamble on this paid off, and although we raised modest cash along the way, we were able to build Nutriband without any significant seed or angel rounds.
We reached a market capitalisation of $120 million (its market value currently is about $75 million), and we have been able to maintain stable and steady control as a result of the minimal capital rounds.
We turn down anywhere from $5 million to $15 million on a weekly basis from funds and institutions because we do not need it. We are not in the business of raising money, and having as little dilution as possible is a core focus for us as a company.
How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?
For our first product, we are expected to reach annual revenues of $200 million. Our second product is independently estimated to have upwards of $135 million in yearly revenue. We are targeting the billion dollar club before the end of 2027.
What are your annual revenues and profits?
We are not yet profitable, as is typical with clinical development-stage companies. However, we also contract manufacture sports tapes and products for brands such as Reebok and KT Tape.
We generate revenues in the region of $4 million to $6 million annually, which goes towards operational costs and reduces our clinical burn.
Derek Foley Butler, Grid Finance
Fresh from serving as financial controller in Uganda and later as country director in Haiti for charity Goal, Derek Foley Butler returned to Ireland in 2013 to found Grid Finance.
The company is the first financial services B-Corp in Ireland and is dedicated to building the financial health and resilience of SMEs.
It offers working capital finance, leasing, and insights to help SMEs grow their business. It will invest €60 million into 1,000 businesses in Ireland this year. It employs 20 people across its three offices in Dublin, Limerick, and Óbidos, Portugal.
Its partners include Chartered Accountants Ireland and An Post, and it has helped 3,500 businesses with more than €150 million in funding. Through its technology platform, it has processed over €2 billion in client funds.
What lightbulb moment prompted you to start-up in business?
It was really my exposure to microfinance in Uganda. The village savings and loan scheme pioneered by Care was transformative in helping rebuild the war-torn communities of northern Uganda, post conflict.
It was the simplest banking model: groups of women coming together to save and lend every week. It was incredibly effective in getting the small amount of money in those communities to work.
Describe your business model and what makes your business unique.
We pioneered flexible finance repayments in the Irish market – this allows a small business to repay as their business revenue ebbs and flows. We also have outstanding service as a result of our great team and our technology platform that we have built.
Lastly our platform is the only place you can get a business credit score in Ireland. We think every small business should have their business credit score to understand their financial health.
What is your greatest business achievement to date?
For me it was our SME recovery campaign. This was key to keeping the SME sector alive during the pandemic and to helping SMEs get back on their feet. I’m very proud of the massive positive impact this campaign had on small firms and Ireland more broadly.
What was your back-to-the-wall moment and how did you overcome it?
Grid Finance has had lots of ups and downs. We ran out of money early on. Then, in 2019, an investor defaulted on us, and we had to scale everything back.
But 2020 was the greatest challenge, 82 per cent of our customers closed within two weeks. In our business, if our customers are closed, we’re not getting paid, and then we have no capital to lend. It was a cataclysm.
Like everything, you find a way. Setting up the SME recovery campaign and taking a full-page ad in the Business Post in 2020 were big moves. I knew they would help save our customers, and, as a result, help save our business as well.
What moment would you cite as a game changerfor the company?
Receiving funding from the European Investment Fund last year was a game changer. It allowed us to invest in new products for scale and build up the internal capacity and structures within the business.
What were the best and the worst pieces of advice you received when starting out?
The worst piece of advice was to commit full-time when we had nothing. I should have maintained even a small consultancy role while building the first version of the platform. It took 18 months before I could launch the business, which is a long time to support yourself with dwindling savings. Then, when we did launch, we failed fast.
How will your market look in three years and where would you like your business to be?
Our plan is to scale the business fivefold in Ireland between 2025 and 2028. Beyond that, I’d like to see us operating in at least two other countries.
What is the most common mistake you see entrepreneurs make?
We are innately overly optimistic, but I think there’s a culture of focusing too much on fundraising and then spending that money, which isn’t healthy. The most important thing in any business is your customers and how you can serve them with a great product.
If you get that right, you have many more options for the future of your company, and you don’t have to be in a constant cycle of fundraising and managing a shareholder base.
