Equilume, the University College Dublin (UCD) equine technology spin-out company, has expanded its sales and marketing team as part of its plan to enter the US Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse market. The two new appointments bring the company’s overall headcount to nine at its headquarters in Co. Kildare, with a further 15 sales agents worldwide.
The company has developed the Equilume Light Mask, which it sells to the global equine industry to assist breeders to maximise the reproductive efficiency and performance in their horses.
The mask, which is manufactured entirely in Ireland, is an automated mobile lighting device that fits under a horse’s head collar and provides the optimum level of blue light to a single eye of a mare to successfully advance her breeding season, prevent long gestations and ensure reproductive activity in early foaling mares.
Breeders around the world are using the Equilume Light Mask to eliminate the requirement to maintain their non-pregnant mares indoors under artificial lighting and thereby save at least €1,000 per mare per season while at the same meeting crucial industry timelines. The technology is also being successfully used globally to help pregnant mares foal on time while optimising foal birth weights.
The Equilume Light Mask has been developed as a result of research carried out by Dr Barbara Murphy in UCD’s School of Agriculture & Food Science, in collaboration with Prof John Sheridan, an optoelectronics researcher in UCD’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.
Last year the company secured €550,000 in seed funding from Enterprise Ireland and a number of angel investors based in Ireland, the UK and in the USA.
Equilume has already won a number awards including Enterprise Ireland’s One to Watch award (2012); overall winner at the Newbridge 200 Business Start-Up Competition (2012) and a NovaUCD Start-Up Award (2011).
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