Offaly man is putting his energy efficiency company on the map

COOLDERRY man Paul Mahon has outlined how he co-founded a company which received a €7 million investment last year and is now part of Bord na Mona's Accelerator Green mentorship programme.

Mr Mahon, son of Pat Mahon who played hurling for both Coolderry and Killoughey, is a past pupil of Birr Community School and graduate of the University of Limerick.

After studying mechanical engineering he worked with many large food and drink industries with bases in the Cork region like Irish Distillers and the Carbery Group.

His focus was on energy efficiency and he went to work for the design and build consultants, ORS, for about 18 months, before going on to establish Watt Footprint with Paul O'Reilly, the man who had set up ORS.

Watt Footprint was founded by the two men in 2020 and it has grown at a remarkable pace since. The business came to market when, as Mr Mahon (30) recalled, “energy prices were going through the roof”.

“We developed a data-led approach to reducing energy costs and helping businesses on the decarbonisation journey,” said Mr Mahon.

“We're putting the control back in the hands of businesses, to control their energy costs and usage.”

Watt Footprint has developed a software platform for its customers, a platform which Mr Mahon says is “agnostic” in how it harvests the data and information on energy usage.

“We have what is probably the largest team of energy specialists in the country. We've just under 50 staff at the minute.”

Those staff service over 900 customers and Watt Footprint is now active internationally as well as in Ireland.

“It's been a quick four years. We did secure an investment in the last year of €7m to help push the platform we've developed. We opened offices in the UK and the United Arab Emirates at the end of last year as well.”

Mr Mahon was just 26 when he quit the day job to help form Watt Footprint, where he is the managing director.

“I was young but I was always quite ambitious and had a quite a good knowledge of what I had done [in previous jobs]. We've built this business to scale and internationally scale, that was the idea. We've been successful to date.”

READ:

https://www.offalyexpress.ie/news/local-news/1723290/bord-na-mona-unveils-companies-chosen-for-offaly-based-green-mentoring-programme.html

Now that Watt Footprint has progressed well beyond its start-up phase, the next steps in its development are crucial.

“There's a challenge with the speed that we've grown over the last four years and we want to make sure that we have the right systems because there is huge demand; and challenge the business to make sure we can get to where we want to be,” said Mr Mahon.

“For us this is about the journey [from here]. We've secured the investment and we're growing very quickly and the big thing for us is that we want to grow correctly as well, and sustainably.”

The Bord na Mona Accelerate Green GROW Programme aims to support Ireland's rising leaders in sustainability and climate action and is designed to empower early-stage enterprises, SMEs, and start-ups driving transformative solutions for a greener future.

It is run from Bord na Mona's premises in Boora, Co Offaly.