By Business & Finance 
Pictured: Gillian Doyle, CEO and Kenneth Doherty, COO
In our Ones to Watch section, we highlight some of the top up and coming businesses in Ireland. This week we feature Cerebreon.
What is it?
Cerebreon’s intelligent debt recovery platform, CORTX Insolvency, is the first deep learning platform in the UK insolvency market which predicts when a consumer is likely to default on their arrangement and when. This allows insolvency firms to step in and take preventative action and improve recovery for the creditors. It automatically extracts, validates and processes all insolvency documents and supporting data using machine learning to >98% accuracy, delivering a substantial reduction in operational costs while simultaneously ensuring the best outcome for all stakeholders.
Who’s behind it?
The co-founders are Gillian Doyle, CEO and Kenneth Doherty, COO. Having worked in the UK insolvency sector for several years as a software developer, senior analyst and operations manager, Gillian is the original domain expert in the team and she leads the commercialisation and strategic development of both the company and the Cortx Platform.
Kenneth is the mathematical stronghold and with an esteemed track record in establishing and managing high performance teams, he manages the technical team and is responsible for the delivery of the software as well as fulfilling the financial functions of the company.
They met in UCD while completing PhDs in Nanophysics (Gillian) and Applied Mathematics (Kenneth). Gillian was supported greatly by her Local Enterprise Office in Donegal in the initial stages and completed a “Start Your Own Business Program”, which allowed Gillian develop key business skills and helped turn her business idea into a great business.
How is it funded?
The company have raised > €1m in funding since it’s incorporation in January 2016. All of the investment was raised completely autonomous to the industry in which it is operating. Growing Capital and Enterprise Ireland were both early investors and were joined by two of the HBAN Angel syndicates, Delta Partners and the Western Development Commission in closing the Seed round just before Christmas. The NDRC have also invested in the company.
Future plans?
As the company’s initial target market is the personal insolvency sector in the UK, Cerebreon have just opened a permanent presence in Birmingham city centre. Debt and insolvency is a global challenge. In the UK, there is an unsecured debt mountain of £300 BN, the EU is €1.8 TR and the US €1.6 BN. The technology is easily adapted to new territories and with a move to pure artificial intelligence planned later this year, new geographies are currently being explored. Predicting default for insolvency arrangements and automation of processes is the market entry strategy but the company plans to move towards predicting insolvency occurring in the first place well in advance of it happening to help prevent it.
