Communion gift computer turned into €3m windfall
A First Communion gift of a computer game set the country's newest technology millionaires on the road to success, it emerged yesterday.
Just 11 years later, Patrick Collison (19) was celebrating with his 17-year-old brother John after sharing a multi-million euro payout from the sale of their IT firm.
The brothers sold their software company, Auctomatic, in a deal believed to be worth over €3m.
"It started when Patrick got a First Communion present of a computer game from a friend, and that was the first," said his mother, Lily, who also has a science background, as does their father, Denis, an electronic engineer. "It is all one big hobby."
Patrick first got access to a computer when he was eight, before going on to do a course around two years later at the University of Limerick, which got him hooked on programming.
As they contemplate their success, Patrick, has no real plans for the money but joked that all he wants is a well-stocked fridge when he is away from home, while his brother, John, has hopes of a car.
"Things were uncertain for so long, we were so short of cash that we have been living on $1 ramen meals for quite a while that I think a full fridge of food might be the first thing to splash out on," Patrick joked.
Last week, they finalised the sale of the software company, which aids businesses dealing in a heavy amount of goods on online market places such as eBay.
After several companies based in Silicon Valley showed interest, it was finally bought by a Canadian company, Live Current Media.
In 2005 Patrick won the BT Young Scientist of the Year competition for developing a new computer programming language.
As the budding entrepreneur could not complete the Leaving Certificate course in a year, he then took the UK equivalent, the A-Levels, and took up a place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston.
However, after just a semester Patrick deferred his degree as he wanted to start a company with John, who was in transition year at the time.
Entrepreneurship was in the family, as their mother had founded a training company, SQT Training, when Patrick was just a year old and John was not yet born.
The duo, who also have a younger brother, Tommy (13), had initially attempted to base their new company in Ireland.
However, both timing and the terms attached to funding from bodies such as Enterprise Ireland, ultimately resulted in them looking to the US. There the company received around $15,000 backing from Boston based investment firm Y Combinator, and further backing from two of Google's former executives, Chris Sacca and Paul Buchheit.
Merging with a UK start-up company headed by cousins Harjeet and Kulveer Tagger, they relocated to California last summer.
Following the sale of the firm, Patrick is moving to Vancouver in Canada to become director of engineering of the company with Live Current Media.
However, John will remain at Castletroy College, in Limerick, to finish his Leaving Certificate while spending the summer working in Canada.
As for now, he said it was "pretty exciting" for them, and they intended to fulfil their long-term plans for Auctomatic.
- Louise Hogan
