John Smee, of Kilkenny Cooling Systems, progressed his business through the use of an Enterprise Ireland innovation voucher with the Nimbus Centre.

“A competitor of ours was advertising an imported cooling system as being very energy efficient. I knew that it wasn’t really but I needed some sort of independent analysis of it. I made contact with Nimbus to discuss the possibility of doing some work on that project and they suggested the Gateway vouchers.”

Nimbus made suggestions for tweaks to Smee’s product while carrying out the study and the changes made turned out to have a very good energy saving and a better design for the product.

“The process is straightforward. Getting some of the supports can be a little bit onerous but the vouchers are very straightforward and targeted. You have a specific requirement and they meet with it. The resulting product has been very successful with exports to the UK and it’s outselling our standard system.

“I think the system gets very good value for money for the taxpayer. The Government obviously want to support research and exporting companies and I think it’s a very good way of killing two birds with one stone.”

Read more about the Technology Gateways and SME success stories in the Irish Times.

To discuss how your SME can obtain funding for a research and innovation project contact us today at:

nimbus@cit.ie

(021) 433 5560