Academic entrepreneur Dr. Donal O’Shea gives seminar on spinning out companies – 14th December 2009

The latest in Invent’s Guest Entrepreneur Series featured Dr. Donal O’Shea, a DCU graduate and former academic staff member. To date, Donal has been responsible for starting up two technology companies: Pixalert in 1999 and SlidePath in 2003. His seminar gave an overview of the lessons learned on his entrepreneurial journey and took place in Invent DCU on 14th December 2009.

Donal identified three crucial elements to make up a successful company – a key technology, a market opportunity and a good management team. In addition, the key question that each academic entrepreneur must answer is if the new technology business is to be a lifestyle business or to be sold. If a sale is the goal, the start-up must aim for an exit which uses as little venture finance as possible.
As SlidePath was based in Invent DCU, this was considered a huge advantage as Donal was able to hire the best and the brightest DCU graduates and post doctoral researchers for his company.
In summary, Donal believes that universities are wonderful places to start up companies as this is where all the ideas are generated. He feels that academic entrepreneurs are uniquely placed to develop new technology companies but they must demonstrate a full time commitment to the venture capital community if their businesses have any chance of success.

Profile of Dr. Donal O’Shea
Donal O'Shea holds a Degree in Biotechnology and a Ph.D. from Dublin City University. Donal was a member of academic staff in the School of Biotechnology from 1999 to 2008. During his career, Donal has founded two companies, Pixalert (inappropriate image detection) and more recently while in the School of Biotechnology established SlidePath, a campus company focused on the provision and analysis of high resolution digital pathology images over the Internet. Under Donal's stewardship, SlidePath developed rapidly to employ 25 people and deliver a turnover of €1.5m. Earlier this year, SlidePath was sold to Genetix Group PLC for €3.7m. Donal is now a member of the Genetix Executive Management Team and takes responsibility for digital pathology strategy within the group.
Pictured above: Dr Donal O’Shea