Cork Company of the Year: Casting an eye over Emerging contenders
We Are Riley Lauren Duggan, Fiona Parfrey and Aine Kilkenny.
In the business of making women’s lives easier by simplifying their monthly cycle, We are Riley was launched in April 2021 and delivers eco-friendly period products to homes and businesses.
What began in a garage in Schull in West Cork has grown rapidly and the start-up has some of the world’s largest multinationals as clients.
Riley provides sustainable organic cotton period products that are better for your body, whenever and wherever you need them.
It supplies them directly to consumers in their homes, in the bathrooms at work, university or school.
The company was founded by Lauren Duggan, Fiona Parfrey, and Aine Kilkenny.
In just 12 months of trading, it has turned over six figures in revenue, securing 16 corporate contracts, and now has more than 2,500 subscribers. Riley has also raised €450,000 in pre-seed funding and has four full-time employees. The company has also been featured in various interviews and profiles, including on the Late Late Show.
“We are over the moon to be nominated in such a prestigious and competitive award,” said Riley co-founder Lauren Duggan.
“Having launched Riley last April from a garage in Schull in the height of the pandemic, we are thrilled with our growth to date here in Ireland and the feedback from our customers. Continuing with sustainability at our core, we have big plans to scale the business this year, including new hires and launching into new markets. Winning this award will really help us to propel our brand forward.” Sustainability has been built into Riley from the word go. Its products are made with natural resources and the tampons and pads are compostable, breaking down within one year and not contributing to landfill.
The product wrappers are also compostable, and tampon applicators are bio-based plastic, made from sugar cane which is a renewable resource. A portion of every sale is donated to fighting period poverty.
Riley has partnered with Cork charity Development Pamoja to educate young girls in Kenya about menstruation and also provide them with free period products so they can still attend school while menstruating.
Its research found that 92% of women run out of period products when they need them. As a result, Riley operates on a subscription model for its direct-to-consumer (D2C) business channel, delivering to customers’ doors.
It also works with corporates, universities, and schools to provide free sanitary products to staff and students and believes it should be treated the same as toilet paper, as a basic human right.
Riley’s vision is to become a global lifelong brand for female health. “To do this, we will grow our D2C subscriber base by more than 20% month on month and aim to significantly grow active subscribers by the end of the year.” It also plans to expand corporate activations and secure additional multinational contracts and grow the team to six by the end of this year, and to 10 by end of 2023.
Ireland’s move towards renewable energy and an end to our dependency on fossil fuels has never been more critical.
Offshore wind is seen as having huge potential for providing much of the country’s future energy requirements and a number of large projects are currently in the planning stages — Green Rebel is at the forefront of this change.
The company provides a range of site investigation services to the offshore wind sector. It offers an end-to-end set of services that covers acquisition, processing, interpretation, and reporting across three primary divisions; Marine, aerial and met-ocean.
In order to harness Ireland’s abundant wind resource, developers are required to complete a wide range of site investigations.
In the absence of Green Rebel, much of this survey work would be completed by multinational companies.
Green Rebel, headquartered in Crosshaven, has a clear and compelling purpose: “To enable the successful harnessing of offshore wind in Ireland and beyond.” Since its establishment, Green Rebel has partnered with many Irish offshore developers and its survey vessels have covered more than 15,000km of surveying in the Celtic Sea, while its aerial team has successfully completed over 70 surveys along the coastline.
Two years ago it did not exist but through an investment of over €15m in the past 18 months, the company has quickly become a flagship member of the Irish supply chain.
They have procured a fleet of assets including the flagship Roman Rebel, one of Europe’s premier purpose-built survey vessels. It operates a fleet of Diamond Air aircraft equipped with high-performance camera kits and the production of a fleet of global-leading floating LiDAR buoys (each weighing 12 tonnes) capable of deployment and performance in the most challenging sea conditions.
The scale, speed, and success of Green Rebel since then are reflected by a team of 75 people based in Cork, growing to more than 125 this year alone. It has opened offices at Crosshaven Boatyard, Cork Airport, and Limerick, with a Cork City office to open shortly.
This year, Green Rebel will also open offices in Scotland and the US, investing over €20m in new innovation, technology, and assets.
“We are honoured to be shortlisted as Emerging Company of the Year by the Cork Chamber of Commerce,” said Kieran Ivers, chief executive of Green Rebel.
“With an abundance of natural resources at our doorstep, Ireland has the potential to be a global leader in renewable energy. Here at Green Rebel, we’re proud to play a key role in supporting Ireland’s energy transition and we have some ambitious targets to grow our team at our HQ here in Cork.” “Offshore wind represents the industry of tomorrow, and Green Rebel represents an example of how local Irish supply chain can offer jobs, investment and opportunity for the leaders of tomorrow,” said Mr Ivers.
Emma Coffey decided that a back injury would not stop her involvement in sport, so she set up the sportswear clothing brand FinalBend when she was 17.
The former competitive pole vaulter created the company in 2018 when she was in her fifth year of secondary school, and last year revenue for FinalBend reached €600,000.
“I had built up so much of my personality around being an athlete because I was training every day,” she said. “To step outside of that was something I didn’t want to do yet.
“That’s why I came up with FinalBend because the final bend is the last turn in the athletics track, which I saw to be the most motivational point in the race. For many people, an injury would be the end, but I was like this is just my final bend. I have more to give to this sport.” Ms Coffey originally created her fitness clothing line for athletes and would sell her pieces directly to athletic clubs. However, when the lockdown came, she decided to talk about FinalBend and her clothing range on TikTok and got the attention of a whole new range of customers.
For this reason, Ms Coffey evolved her clothing range to be more accessible, and not just for competitive athletes. On her website, FinalBend offers clothing from beanies to leggings, which are a bestseller.
“I’ll never go a day where I don’t sell a pair of black leggings,” she said.
“It’s funny, I do graphs on all this and people do laugh when they see them, because I usually point out the lull during 2018 and 2019. I say: ‘Well sure, I was doing the Leaving Cert then’,” Ms Coffey said about the growth of her business.
Ms Coffey is preparing to revamp her brand further in the upcoming months, with clothing in future launches due to be made with recycled plastics and nylons.
She has received no outside investment for her company to date, and for the first few years since its launch, she had to “funnel” any revenue straight back into the company.
“I started with basically zero capital,” she said. “I was 17 and super-enthusiastic and decided that I definitely could start a business with no upfront cost.” Ms Coffey did not employ herself until September 2020, but she added that “all of those missed wages counted for something”. Now she employs three people full-time and has “many, many helpers” such as “diligent friends and family”.
Ms Coffey is in her third year studying commerce at UCC through a scholarship. She spoke to the Irish Examiner as she was getting ready to head out to a college ball.
FinalBend was a recent winner at the National Startup Awards, winning Ecommerce and Retail Startup of the Year. Now she is nominated in the Emerging Business Category in Cork Chamber Awards.
“In 2019, I was working as a food and beverage assistant in the Metropole Hotel which hosted the ‘Championing Cork: Cork Chamber of Commerce’ event,” she said. “Working at the event, I was inspired, and having recently founded FinalBend, I was determined to make it a success.”
