A payment risk technology company based at the Dublin Business Innovation Centre has raised €600,000 in a funding round led by AIB Seed Capital and backed by Enterprise Ireland and private investors.
Payment risk specialist Onformonics was founded in 2008 by Conor McGoveran and Martin Petrov. It has already built a strong customer base in Europe and has plans to expand into the Middle East, Africa and the US by the end of the year.
To support this growth, the company is recruiting 22 additional employees for its European headquarters in Dublin by 2013. This will bring its total number of employees to 35.
Onformonics provides innovative risk management solutions to companies faced with the regulatory and industry compliance requirements of the financial services sector.
Customers include credit card processing companies, technology service providers, retail outlets and other organisations that process payments or hold sensitive and private customer information. Onformonics provides workflow-based platforms to enable its customers achieve their compliance targets, reduce and manage their IT risks, and thereby avoid the problems of potential data breaches.
Data breaches continue to be a serious business risk for the card-processing industry. The impact of credit card data fraud can result in eroded customer confidence and a hit to the bottom line.
Tighter compliance and data protection measures introduced at national and EU levels, coupled with the financial penalties imposed on companies in breach, have created a significant market for Onformonics.
“Consumers and policy makers are now expecting increasing accountability and transparency from financial institutions and other businesses that hold confidential information and rightly so,” said McGoveran.
“This renewed vigour for compliance and governance presents an opportunity for Onformonics to continue to innovate new products and services which achieve the end goal of protecting valuable data.
“Dublin BIC was instrumental in helping us raise this investment. Its business planning support and guidance allowed us to prepare an investor-ready business plan which opened the door to prospective investors. Its tireless commitment and strategic advice put us in a very strong position for growth.”
What Onformonics does
Onformonics provides a solutions framework to execute and manage a compliance program to many of the card payment industry standards; these include PCI DSS, PA DSS, PED, Visa Pin Security, MasterCard SPT, Visa AIS and MasterCard SDP.
In conjunction with the ability manage a compliance program, its solutions assist companies in leveraging their compliance efforts to identify and manage key IT risks within their organisation.
“Onformonics is a great example of the innovative entrepreneurs we need to back in Ireland,” said Alex Hobbs, funds portfolio manager, Dublin BIC.
“Despite the economic hardships of 2009, it proves that young Irish businesses that focus on solving real customer needs in global markets can attract equity investment backing,” Hobbs added.
By John Kennedy
Photo: Alex Hobbs, funds portfolio manager, Dublin BIC; Patricia Shields, head of operations, Onformonics; and Conor McGoveran, founder and director, Onformonics.
