European success stories

"EU funded projects are directly responsible for the creation of Intune Networks"

Intune Networks was founded by John Dunne and Tom Farrell in 1999 in Dublin, Ireland. Intune employs 125 people and researches and designs networking products that involve photonic subsystems, electronics and software systems combined into a single platform.

When your company first started, how many people did you employ and on which ICT field did you focus?

The company began with 8 employees in 2000, focusing on photonics for telecoms applications, in particular what we call Tunable Laser components.

And today, how many people do you employ? How has your company grown? Have you expanded your work to new or different areas?

Today, Intune employs 125 people, a 15 times growth over 10 years. In 2006, the company took a decision to expand from the components industry into the systems industry and to move up the value supply chain in the telecoms industry. This involved funding a major R&D programme and adding packaging, electronics and software to the photonics components and subsystems previously designed. Recently the Irish Government awarded a €10M contract to Intune to build the Exemplar Network. The Exemplar Network is a first-class fibre-optic network in Ireland using Intune’s new network switching equipment products (see the iVX8000 pictured above). This product contains Intellectual Property Rights developed by Intune during the EU Projects that Intune was involved with over many years.

What made you apply for EU research funding? Was your first application successful?

Prior to starting the company, the founders worked in University College Dublin as research partners in several EU research programmes during framework programmes 4 & 5. It was during these projects that the idea for the creation of Intune Networks began. Our first application as Intune Networks was for the project NEWTON and we were successful. Intune has since successfully applied for several programmes, the latest success is the MAINS project under the FP7 programme with Telefonica I&D as the lead partner.

How has EU-funded research helped your business? What has been the most important or useful?

EU funded projects are directly responsible for the creation of Intune Networks, as the initial ideas, contacts and customers came from EU programmes in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. It's when we started working with tunable laser manufacturers: Marconi in the BLISS project and Altitun in the ACTUAL project. Since then, EU programmes have successfully enabled Intune to survive the telecom industry downturn in 2002, through diversification into photonics sensor systems in the OFFSOHO project with Telefonica I&D, while continuing research in telecoms projects such as the NEWTON project. After 10 years, Intune still benefits from the EU R&D projects. We met our current partner Telefonica I&D in the FP7 MAINS project 9 years ago when working in the FP5 OFFSHOHO project.

Did EU funding enable your company to conduct research or explore new fields that would not have been possible without extra financial support? Have any concrete applications, products or processes come of this?

After the telecoms downturn in 2002, Intune found it difficult to raise Venture Capital funding and used a combination of EU R&D programmes and Angel Investors to keep the company moving forward. This enabled Intune to keep developing its technology while other companies around the world stopped innovating. Now, Intune’s products have a market lead due to this innovation lead-time in the area of tunable laser subsystems and control. The EU funded FIRM project for example helped Intune to develop a transponder system that was shipped to Telefonica I&D. That transponder component is now used inside the Intune iVX8000 Distributed optical switch product.

What has been the most positive experience from involvement in EU research programmes?

The most positive experience has been the simultaneous gain of having researchers and suppliers contribute in building new products, while also having early adopter customers on the other side to test applications. This vertical integration in the projects helps to kick-start a supply chain and helps to commercialise the products. The vertical integration of partners makes new ideas more likely to be accepted on the market.

What is your top tip or word of advice for a young high-tech entrepreneur starting out today?

High-tech is a global industry and in order to compete, you must have products with expanded Intellectual Property to sell, either through new technology, new processes or new designs. It is therefore critical to know what is happening across Europe and around the world in your field when you start. The EU programmes are world-leading, and hugely beneficial to help young entrepreneurs to “get out of the lab” and learn about commercial reality.