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June 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 3
“I was the judge, and I remember having to fight to get them to win,” said Phelan. “I love their model but there are others coming through now like Curve, Starling Bank, Metro and M26 in Germany.
“If you look at their model, they are not really disin- termediating banking – they are disintermediating pieces of banking. I still use Visa and Chase for my banking but I can have a Curve card, which can im- mediately do a conversion at a mid-market rate. So these are all pieces that are coming together.”
Phelan, who sits on the board of Transunion after it acquired Trustev, works with an array of Fintech players helping to provide them with a holistic approach to fraud and identity management.
Phelan and a partner recently closed Nohovation, a €25m investment fund to help Irish companies scale globally.
“We couldn’t find enough opportunities even though we looked at 114 start-ups,” he explained. “There is probably a dearth of Irish early-stage start-ups and that can happen when there is a booming economy when you have people who
are very comfortable in jobs and there are not as many start-ups.”
Even though Dublin is awash with tech multina- tionals such as Facebook, Google, Amazon and Twitter, the city still only has a burgeoning startup scene.
However, Phelan doesn’t think the Irish government’s policy of relocating foreign start-
ups from mainly Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Central and Eastern Europe is working.
Enterprise Ireland, the government agency,
has provided “waves” of Russian-speaking firms with support to secure funding, visas and accommodation as well as mentoring after they decide to move to the Irish capital.
“I don’t think it works long-term,” said Phelan. “I think I know a lot of them, and I would love to see their proven business model. If they are looking outside Ireland to bring start-ups in, there is obviously not enough start-ups in Ireland and I would try to figure out how to get scaling start-ups.
“If I bring a three-man team from Russia and I give them a €50,000 grant, in reality, it’s tourism for entrepreneurship. If you were looking at for a pure investment logic, stay in Russia and I will give you 50 grand and it will last longer and you will have a better opportunity of them scaling there. In Ireland, that 50 grand won’t go far.”
Rather than just “a scattergun approach,” Phelan believes the Irish government should focus on bringing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into
the country and maintain Dublin’s status as the European HQ for US tech giants and a growing base for fintech disruptors.
“Moving three people from Leningrad to Dublin is a dramatic life experience and it probably means if they were good enough they would have been funded there,” he said. “It’s more of an experience for these guys buts some may stay and end up getting jobs in the sector.”