Congrats to our alumni Vol Pigrukh and the whole team at Profitero on building one of the most exciting and successful startups in Ireland. In particular congrats on;
- Winning IBM Global Entrepreneur of the Year 2012
- Winning IBM Smartcamp London 2011
- Being selected as Dogpatch Labs resident 2011
- Winning Seedcamp 2010 (first Irish company to do so)
Few other Irish, let alone European startups, have achieved your level of success in such a short time.We’re super proud of your achievements and best of luck in the future.Best regards,Your former colleagues at Google Ireland
Unfortunately this ad doesn’t exist but I’d love to see this advert published by Google in the Irish media for 3 reasons
- Vol and Dmitry (his other Irish based co-founder) are great guys, but more importantly they are great examples of ‘immigrant entrepreneurs’ who first came to Ireland via the lure of careers with large multinationals like Google, IBM, Microsoft and Accenture. Vol is originally from Ukraine and Dmitry is originally from Belarus (Their 3rd co-founder Kanstantsin is based in Belarus). They are products of the ‘Google BarrowPlex’ and great ambassadors for the quality and ambition of the talent being recruited into Ireland by Google, IBM and others.
- It’s a great PR and Recruitment win for Google. ‘Hey look at us, we’re not just here for the tax, we’re here because we can attract amazing talent to Ireland. And guess what, if you move country to join us in Dublin you could also be a world class entrepreneur like Vol in a few years. Google is in the heart of Dublin and our alumni and employees are helping build Ireland’s Startup Eco-System!’ With one simple advert, Google could easily broaden ‘their Irish story’ away from just tax and free lunches by showing the longer term benefits Google are bringing to Ireland. For too long some have criticized Google and other multinationals for not contributing enough to the local startup ecosystem. Profitero ends that debate in my opinion – and they won’t be the only examples.
- From an Irish startup eco-system point of view this is a huge ‘win-win’ for the complimentary IDA led FDI program and Enterprise Ireland’s seed capital program. I’m pretty sure that without the presence of large technology multinationals or the EI backed Seed funds that Profitero would not be in Ireland. FDI was the ‘hook’ that first attracted the raw talent to Dublin, helped keep them here, and ultimately gave them the experience, credibility and time they needed to make the leap into entrepreneurship. Immigrants are a large part of the driving energy in most tech eco-systems and this is best reflected in Silicon Valley when between 1995 and 2005 over 50 percent of the venture-backed technology companies in Silicon Valley were founded by immigrants. With over 50% of employees at Google, and many other large tech organisations, being from outside Ireland I’m excited to see how many more Profitero’s emerge over the coming years.
Connor Murphy 