OxyMem, a spin-out from UCD, has won the Overall Excellence award at the Intellectual Property Awards 2014. Year to date the company has raised €600,000 from private investors to fund product development.
The IP Awards, devised and organised by Event Strategies, were designed to recognise and celebrate those involved in the IP process and to generate awareness of the wealth that IP creation and monetisation brings to Ireland.
OxyMem was co-founded in 2013 by Professor Eoin Casey and Dr Eoin Syron as spin-out from UCD's School of Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.
The firm has developed technology that it claims can cut wastewater treatment costs by up to 75%. Its solution involves a more efficient way to supply oxygen to the bacteria that feast on the all-you-can-eat buffet of foulness carried in wastewater.
The traditional treatment process involves pumping compressed air through the wastewater tanks. With this process, only about 30% of the oxygen reaches the bacteria. OxyMem has developed a system of membranous tubing that allows oxygen to seep into the water and stay there, with up to 95% efficiency.
In Association with
The principals behind OxyMem are Casey, Syron and businessman Wayne Byrne, one of the owners of Biocore Environmental in Tallaght.
Syron's PhD centred on the membrane aerated biofilm reactor, and subsequent research on this topic resulted in a patent application.
OxyMem currently employs 24 people and plans to increase staff numbers to 35 within the next year. The venture operates from a 25,000 sq ft premises in Athlone. Casey says that two major challenges to date have been developing a manufacture process and securing credibility with potential customers.
“It took us three years to bring the manufacturing cost down to a level where we can market our solution at 25% less than conventional technologies,” he says. “The water industry is very risk adverse so we need to incrementally build credibility in order to prove to the market that this is a viable product. The sector is craving innovation but is slow to adopt it.”
Eoin Casey with Ellen Szymanski,
US Chamber of Commerce
OxyMem, advised by law firm Ronan Daly Jermyn, raised initial funding of €250,000 in Q3 2013. Byrne invested €6,000 (paying €1.16 per share) and Biocore invested €35,000 (paying €16.47 per share).
Eoin Syron invested €27,000 (paying €5.39 per share), Casey parted with €5,000 (paying €26.18 per share) and production advisor Nigel Coombes invested €53,000 (paying €42 per share).
This leveraged matching investment of €125,000 (€50 per share) from Enterprise Ireland. UCD has a 12% stage in the venture for a token investment.
In May 2014, Wayne Byrne invested a further €56,000 and Kellysan Enterprises Ltd invested €124,000. Kellysan is an investment vehicle associated with Brian Kelly and Shane Kelly, senior executives in Kentz. The price paid per share was €40.80.
In July 2014, Nigel Coombes invested another €20,000 and Kellysan Enterprises followed up with another €103,000. The price paid per share was €100.
This was followed in August 2014 by a €300,000 investment by The Shamrock Gift Company (Trading House) Ltd, an unlimited company where the directors are Michael Dolan, Tom McDowell and Eamon Dolan. The price paid per share was €100. (October 2014)
