MASHUP
Mashup: to create something new by combining elements from two or more sources.
We attract opportunities, capital and talent…and combine them to create new profitable realities,
as part of a virtuous circle that contributes positively to our world.
About us
Small businesses. Big opportunities. Lots of them.
Mashup Ireland is a small Irish investment group with BIG plans.
Listed on Nasdaq (click here), we’re a group of hard-working entrepreneurs with a strong track record of creating tangible value.
Focused on Ireland, we attract opportunities, capital and talent which we mashup to create and enhance the value of businesses and property assets.
We do this by using our own capital to create, incubate and nurture new businesses, acquire and grow existing business, turn distressed businesses around and actively enhance the value of property and other assets in a range of ways. This involves partnering with talented entrepreneurs and business owners.
Starting with no capital whatsoever, over the past 15 years our management team and operating partners have created over €19m of tangible value from these kinds of value-added commercial property projects and Irish SME projects including Autofulfil, Schoolbooks.ie, Kollect, DessertFirst, Fettle and Adhdnow.
If a few individuals can create €19m of value with no initial capital…then what could a Nasdaq-listed group achieve by focusing its resources on this €420bn per annum Irish small and medium sized enterprise (SME) market, that is starved of risk capital and where no other listed companies operate?
We’re only getting started and invite you to join us on our journey as a shareholder, operating partner and / or lender.
Sound good?
WHY IRISH SMALL & MEDIUM-SIZED ENTERPRISES (SMEs)?
Large market opportunity:
Ireland has more than 350k SMEs, generating a turnover more than €420bn per annum. SMEs (<250 persons employed) account for 99.8% of all enterprises and 69.2% of people employed in Ireland.
Significant pain exists:
The Group has the resources needed to support Irish SMEs, business owners and founders with a range of challenges and pain points that they face including access to capital, succession planning, attracting talent, utilisation of technology for advancement and green transition.
Irish SME investor competition is low:
No other listed companies are targeting investing and supporting Irish SMEs. Only 3.3% of the assets of Irish banks are advances to SMEs.
Irish SME entry valuations are low:
Valuation multiples of 2-6 times EBITDA are common for controlling interests. There are extremely limited options for owners of minority stakes in Irish SMEs to sell to third parties.
Potential to develop competitive advantage and scale:
Favourable tax treatment:
Strong policy support for Irish SMEs from the Irish government:
Domestic savings are high in Ireland and options very low for retail:
Ireland is an attractive location for investment:
Public equity market investors have very limited access to invest in Ireland’s domestic economy:
No investment opportunities:
Potential to replicate in other countries:
There are no other listed groups that focus on opportunities within the €420bn per annum Irish SME sector.
We believe a very significant amount of value can be created and unlocked by enabling a selective portfolio of Irish SMEs and entrepreneurs to benefit from some of the benefits of being listed on the stock market, without incurring the costs of a listing.
Examples of these benefits include increased ability to attract capital, talent and opportunities, access to transaction skills and experience, access to tax structuring capabilities, access to risk reduction capabilities, access to partnership opportunities, opportunities to monetise minority shareholdings and (in time) access to valuable shared services and lower costs.
To capture a portion of this value, our strategy is to acquire controlling and non-controlling interests in Irish SMEs and work in partnership with entrepreneurs and SME business owners to enhance the profitability and value of the SMEs we invest in.
Our main focus is developing long-term stable cash flows from the SMEs and projects we invest in and actively supporting the growth of these over time.
Our secondary interest is participating in opportunistic value-added transactions that offer very attractive risk-return profiles to the group.
We adopt a highly active approach to capital allocation: we look for opportunities to recycle our capital and have a range of plans to reduce our blended cost of capital over time as our portfolio grows and benefits from diversification and asset-backing.
From practical perspective, implementing this strategy involves:
- Attracting opportunities, talent and capital and managing the ‘mashup’ of these three elements into the creation of value that can be monetized in a variety of ways.
- Setting up new businesses in partnership with suitable operating partners / management teams.
- Acquiring stakes in existing SMEs and working constructively with their management teams to support them to create value.
- Acquiring more property assets that offer very attractive risk / return characteristics, especially through the design and implementation of active value-enhancement strategies.
- Identifying opportunities for portfolio businesses to work together on projects for mutually beneficial value-creation and synergies.
- Introducing and developing selective shared services, aimed at enabling the Group’s portfolio SME businesses to avail of some of the advantages of being part of a larger listed group, without having to incur the costs of being listed themselves.
- Adopting a dynamic approach to effective capital allocation, combined with effective asset-backed strategies to drive down the Group’s blended cost of non-dilutive capital over time.