Bit disappointing to see another Irish tech company sell out early instead of pushing for a flotation. Can anyone more familiar with the industry comment as to whether there was a realistic chance for them to succeed on their own?
It's an Irish thing - I'm constantly looking at the Irish tech scene and what we're missing that we can't really compensate for is size. Theres a trend among such Irish tech companies to sell very early.
In Silicon Valley a company will never experience any problems scaling. The entire ecosystem is developed there is a full stack available to cater to whatever the growing firms need - be it talent, investment or other resources.
Ireland is more limited - we cater to startups and large tech companies quite well so the strategy is grow, move to US while medium sized grow again and then return to Ireland when you're Apple or Google and you want an EMEA HQ. We don't cater that well to the medium sized firms in Ireland so it encourages early selling.
You're probably right. I wonder if there are lessons to be learned though from similar sized countries (e.g. Israel, Denmark, Netherlands)? My feeling is that a lot of the issues you raise are valid, but they could be addressed or at least mitigated somewhat.
