Spin Out success story – Integrity IQ with Daniel Malan

What was the spark for the idea?
“From my experience working with private companies, I knew that in a lot of cases ethics training amounted to a series of ineffective tick-box exercises. Corporate governance failings lead to huge annual losses from fraud, corruption and unethical behaviour, so we felt that to really tackle that trend, the user experience of the proposed solution needed to be better and more innovative,” Daniel explains.

“I discussed this with my colleagues in Trinity Innovation and Enterprise and they introduced me to The Learnovate Centre, which was a key connection because it provided me with access to people with technical knowledge and experience in learning technology, who I could bounce ideas off in the very early stages of product development. That relationship opened a lot of doors for us.”

What’s happened since connecting with Learnovate?
IntegrityIQ will this year become the first campus company to spin out of Trinity Business School – a milestone which Daniel admits would not have been possible without the support of Learnovate. Indeed, access to the learning technology hub’s network led to an introduction to Enterprise Ireland, the business support group, which encouraged Daniel to apply to its Commercialisation Fund, a funding mechanism to support third-level researchers who want to translate their research into innovative and commercially viable products, services and companies.

“Enterprise Ireland liked the idea a lot and gave us money to carry out a feasibility study to support our application to the Commercialisation Fund. In the end, the grant sum we received from the Commercialisation Fund was €365,000 and that enabled us to put our team together,” he says.

Daniel describes the appointment of Mark Shields, the company’s commercial lead, as another move critical to the company’s success.
“In most cases with a campus company, the commercial lead becomes the CEO, so we knew that it was going to be an important appointment – not just in terms of attracting investment, but for the overall leadership of the company. Mark’s experience is spot-on both in terms of his sustainability knowledge as well as his credentials as an award-winning Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur,” says Daniel.

IntegrityIQ is at an advanced stage of discussions with investors, and the company has completed a successful Beta trial of the product with a multinational company headquartered in Canada.

How did Learnovate support?
“Learnovate was essential to the success of the project. They were our partner right from the beginning and had all the experience and resources. The first roles we recruited were on the technical side and almost all came from Learnovate – either from existing staff members or people recruited through the Learnovate ecosystem,’ says Daniel.

“The funding came from Enterprise Ireland and the resources, directly and indirectly, came from Learnovate so they were the ideal partners in terms of learning technology, innovation and recruitment.”

So, what now?
“We’re still in the process of spinning out from Trinity Business School, but we expect the process to be completed soon.
“There’s always going to be a relationship with Trinity College and Learnovate. That’s partly because Trinity College has a 10% equity stake in IntegrityIQ and partly because of the relationships we have built with them.
“The equity stake is part of the agreement which created the campus company. And that’s only fair because, without them, none of this would have happened.”