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The smart building start-up was the only Irish company to receive European grant funding in the most recent DigiFed call.
Dublin-based smart building start-up Safecility has secured €42,000 in funding from DigiFed. This is an EU-backed initiative looking to support the adoption of digital tech from European SMEs.
As part of the award, Safecility will collaborate with Swiss semiconductor company STMicroelectronics to speed up development and time to market of its new Safesound project.
Safesound will develop smart electronics using edge-processing techniques to identify emergency events in a building and support the work of emergency response teams.
“Our team will benefit enormously from the grant and the opportunity to work alongside STMicroelectronics to bring our new safety products to market,” said Safecility CEO Cian O’Flaherty.
“After a really tough 2020 thanks to Covid-19, this award is further proof that the future is looking good for our company.”
Safecility, which was founded in 2017, has already developed a software platform that automates the testing of emergency lights in buildings and records any faults. It aims to use IoT technology to help facility and property managers with their compliance obligations.
The company has now received a total of €160,000 in European innovation funding, with previous backing from the European Space Agency and the EU Horizon 2020 programme. It has also been backed by Enterprise Ireland as a high-potential start-up and it received a Small Business Innovation Research award from the agency in 2019.
Safecility was one of 16 projects that received a total of more than €1.3m from DigiFed to develop smart applications that will help digitise industry in Europe. It was the only Irish company to receive funding in this latest call, which was announced this week, with the largest share going to SMEs and start-ups in Italy, Spain and Germany.
“Non-equity grant funding has helped us to launch our wireless emergency lighting system and now it will support us expanding our range of IoT safety solutions for buildings,” O’Flaherty added.
“In a time where early-stage funding can be difficult, these alternatives are crucial to the survival of innovative businesses.”
