UCD’s Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs, NovaUCD, will undergo a €6.5 Million development project in order to house more early start-ups.
The university project, which will extend the facility’s east courtyard, and has already commenced and the development is expected to be completed within 12 months. On completion, the hub will house 50 per cent more budding companies than it could previously.
NovaUCD is based on UCD’s Belfield campus, opened in October 2003 and is currently home to over 25 start-ups. These companies either came from other UCD research programmes or have been brought in from outside the college in order to locate at Nova and collaborate with the university.
“The development of the east courtyard will enable us to increase our capacity and when completed NovaUCD will be able to accommodate up to 450 people,”said Tom Flanagan, UCD’s Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation.
“The NovaUCD facility has been running at full capacity for several years now. There is an ongoing and significant demand from ambitious entrepreneurs who want to locate their start-ups here to leverage our ecosystem of experienced mentors, founders, alumni, investors and sponsors who can help them grow their businesses globally.”
Since opening, UCD says Nova has supported 225 companies which have raised over €200m in equity funding. As the home of UCD’s technology transfer team, NovaUCD has also registered some 750 invention disclosures, filed over 250 priority patent applications and licensed over 170 technologies to companies such as Amdocs, Amryt and Glanbia.
For more Information, visit www.ucd.ie/innovation
Pictured Above: Tom Flanagan, UCD Director of Enterprise and Commercialisation.
