By Business & Finance 
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 is developing an intelligent enterprise software solution that automatically processes and analyses insolvency documents to administer and predict the outcome of debt recovery. Its core product, Cortx Insolvency, extracts, validates and processes all insolvency documents and supporting data to reduce operating costs, improve accuracy, forecast portfolio recovery, reduce default levels and verify the application of Treat Customer Fairly principles in a fully auditable and transparent way. Cortx Insolvency is initially targeted at the UK personal insolvency sector, but the in other geographical markets across Europe and the USA, and to wider financial and legal verticals such as corporate insolvency, general non-performing debt and investment portfolio management.
Who’s behind it?
Gillian Doyle (CEO) and Kenneth Doherty (COO) are the founders of the company which is head-quartered in Ardara, Co. Donegal, but also have a satellite office in Dublin and have established a UK subsidiary company based in Birmingham, England.
Gillian holds a Ph.D. in NanoPhysics from University College Dublin. Having worked in the UK insolvency sector for several years as a software developer, senior analyst and operations manager, she has intimate knowledge of this entire industry and has established a strong industry network. This software is her vision which was identified from previous roles.
Kenneth holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from University College Dublin. With 10 years industry experience and a former R&D manager, he has an esteemed track record in establishing and managing high performance teams and collaborative partnerships. A fully certified GDPR officer he manages the delivery of the product and fulfils the company’s financial functions.
How is it funded?
In the very early stages of the company, Cerebreon was funded by the founders own investment and bootstrapped cash along with an initial pre-seed equity investment from Enterprise Ireland, Growing Capital Limited and the EAF Irish Angels. In 2017, Cerebreon were also national winners of Intertrade Irelands’ Seedcorn Investor Readiness competition, securing additional prize funds into the company. Since then Cerebreon have gone on to close a Seed round investment deal and to date, have raised €1.1m in investment from a range of private Irish investors and government agencies which include: Enterprise Ireland; HBAN Angel Syndicates; Delta Partners VC; Western Development Commission; National Digital Research Centre; Growing Capital Limited; and the EAF Irish Angels.
Future plans?
Within the next year the team plans to expand its customer base in the UK and establish a much more significant market share, growing significantly both in Ireland and UK to around 20 full-time employees. Cerebreon has also started exploring the debt recovery sector in several other EU countries with a goal of providing our technology to these territories also. “Our longer term vision is to reduce the level of non-performing debt on a global scale by bringing machine intelligence to the debt market. We aim to be the central data manager for the insolvency market allowing real time transfer of information and documentation through a fully auditable and compliant core, harmonising the insolvency process between Debtors, Creditors, Agents and Insolvency Practitioner firms and delivering the best possible outcome for all stakeholders,” says Mr Doherty.
