Furthr VC, the venture of arm of Furthr, has led a €750,000 investment in 3D Issue as the Donegal-based digital publications creator seeks to expand into new markets.

3D Issue, which has a customer base of more than 1,500 in 44 countries, plans to add 24 jobs by the end of 2023 with the investment from Furthr VC, formerly DBIC Ventures, and the company has ambitions to grow revenues from €1m to €6m over the next three years.

The company, founded by Paul McNulty in 2007, specialises in content experience tools for the development of digital publications, and last year launched its Experios multi-level drag and drop content-building platform.

The platform created white-labelled templates for responsive, high-end publications such as magazines, brochures, reports and handbooks that are adaptable to users devices.

3D Issue claims that clients can cut design costs by as much as 98% with Experios.

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Its clients include Mercedes, Sony, NASA, Mensa, McGraw Hill, Haymarket and Procter & Gamble, and 3D Press now plans to expand its presence in existing and new markets and also press ahead with product development with the investment.

McNulty said: “This is an exciting period of growth and innovation for our company and we are delighted to have the backing of Furthr VC and the Western Development Commission.

"We have an established base of extremely large international enterprise customers and the launch of Experios will be significant in helping us to increase our revenues through existing business, as well as new opportunities.

“Recently, we helped a publisher to reduce the design time spent on an online publication from 240 man hours to four, while reducing the cost per page from more than €4K to under €70. We will continue to innovate to ensure we are bringing the best service and quality to our customers."

The 24 roles announced cover design, software development and sales and marketing. Most of the roles will be based in Donegal, as well as remotely elsewhere in Ireland, while some sales and marketing roles will be located in 3D Issue’s key markets in the US and UK.

3D Issue Ltd booked a loss of €25,000 in the year to March 2021. Paul McNulty owns 95% and the equity and shareholders were paid €310,000 in dividends.

Richard Watson, managing partner of Furthr VC, stated: “When we established our latest fund, we set out very specific criteria for the types of companies that we were looking to back, and which we believed would deliver the best returns for our investors.

"As a technology company, with a high performing management team and which is experiencing significant growth in major global markets, 3D Issue fits that bill very neatly.

“With the launch of Experios, 3D issue is setting itself apart from competitors and is well-positioned to become a major player in the global digital publishing market.”

Furthr VC's latest fund specialises in Seed to Series A stage B2B software and MedTech firms and is backed by leading Irish technology entrepreneurs and business leaders, as well as Enterprise Ireland. It is on track to invest in up to 30 companies by year-end 2024.

Tomás Ó Síocháin, CEO of the Western Development Commission, said: “"3D Issue has demonstrated global ambition from Ireland’s Atlantic Coast and our team are delighted to support their journey as they scale up the operation and grow their staff numbers.”

Photo: Richard Watson (left) and Paul McNulty.