Irish entrepreneur Conall Lavery has been named as the HBAN Business Angel of the Year following a voting process amongst the Irish angel investment community.
Lavery is an active angel investor in the software sector, and is the co-founder of the new €2m TechExecs Investment Syndicate.
HBAN Investor Syndicates is the all-island angel investment network which operates under the auspices of InterTradeIreland and Enterprise Ireland. The syndicate plans to use €2m to channel into knowledge-intensive technology-based start-ups. The syndicate is led by entrepreneur Ian Shearer and several other private investors.
Lavery has founded a number of companies, including Entropy, which had turnover of more than €15m and employed more than 90 people. He was responsible for the start up, scaling and sale of the business in March 2006, following its restructuring post-2001 and the dotcom crash.
Lavery was also a finalist in the 2000 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year programme. Since departing Entropy, he has completed a diploma in corporate governance at UCD, played a role in a charitable foundation and provided consultancy services to Mainstream Renewable Power.
HBAN national director Diane Roberts and Dragons’ Den investor Gavin Duffy presented the award to Lavery.
“Conall Lavery is an exemplar of many private individuals who are keen to create further developments in the economy and potentially a further return on their investments for the individuals concerned. These are knowledge-intensive businesses with the potential to create jobs and stimulate economic recovery. We’re very pleased to acknowledge this growing investment opportunity and the inputs, contribution and expertise of our business angel investors in this area,” said Roberts.
