Todd Dagres, one of the most highly ranked VCs in the US, launched a successful VC career with a $12 million investment in dotcom-era media content delivery company Akamai, which went on to make several hundred million for then-employer Battery Ventures.After a successful decade at VC firm Battery Ventures, he co-founded Spark Capital to hone in on his entertainment and internet interests. Current investments include Twitter, Covestor, Kateeva, Menara Networks, Verivue and Irish laser networking company InTune Networks.
InTune Networks is a cornerstone of the Irish Government’s “exemplar” (showcase) network and a company that Ministers have touted as potentially an “Irish Nokia” with the promise of employing thousands.
Visiting Dublin last week for an InTune board meeting, Dagres gives a short laugh at the “Nokia” tag. InTune has “very disruptive technology – it really is a generational leap” several years ahead of its competitors, he says.
The company “has a chance to be a very meaningful company” and of considerably increasing the number of well-paid employees in Ireland, but he thinks in terms of hundreds, perhaps, not thousands.
He adds: “How long did it take for Nokia to get to be the size it is now?”
But he liked what he saw in InTune even at an early stage. Rare for VCs, Spark took a stake in InTune when it was in development mode, still three years off when it expected to have a product. Now as that point approaches, Dagres is hoping the company will win customers.
While, like most VCs, he doesn’t care much for government interventions into the entrepreneurial process, he has high praise for the Irish initiative to create its exemplar network. Such a network is attractive for companies like InTune because it enables them to test products and services live rather than in a lab.
“I like governments to get out of the way, but in this case I think the Government has done something that’s smart. Without Government support it would have been hard to build something like this in Ireland.
“The exemplar really puts Ireland on the map in terms of innovation and networking because no one else has anything like this,” he says. “Not too many places have the hardware, software and optical capabilities to do something like this.”
He says having the network and companies like InTune using it means added jobs and, more important, new national expertise.
Read More