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PC Peripherals is rebranding as Eduvolve in ‘€2.5m deal’
Fintan Costello, Erik Jentetics and Ian Gaughran have rebranded school laptop and tablet supplier PC Peripherals as Eduvolve as part of a €2.5 million investment by Jentetics' Grafton EducationAs part of the agreement – worth €2.5 million overall, the group said in a statement – PCP is now being rebranded as Eduvolve.
It is being positioned to compete with other players in the market for government contracts to supply tech and tech services to schools, including Wriggle and Upskill Online Ltd, trading as Olive Media. Ian Gaughran, a former senior manager at Microsoft Ireland and current PCP chief executive, will helm the expanded group, Eduvolve said in a statement.
Gaughran also previously served as chief executive of Olive for Education, which is part of Olive Media, while Grafton Education is co-owned and led by young Galway businessman Erik Jentetics, Olive for Education’s one-time chief operating officer. Hazel Chu: ‘Babies and two-seater convertibles don’t match, so the car had to go’ Earlier this month, Olive Media dropped a temporary High Court injunction it had secured against Gaughran and Jentetics after a judge ruled the company had a prima facie case of “commercial sabotage” against its one-time employees.
Judge David Nolan granted the interim injunction in late July after reading the affidavit of Brendan Kavanagh, Olive’s chief executive and founder, who complained that his former colleagues were unlawfully using Olive’s confidential information to poach schools. Gaughran, Jentetics and a third former Olive executive and current PCP employee, Fintan Costello, strongly denied the accusation. The court in early August heard that the two sides had agreed that the interim injunction orders could be discharged.
A separate dispute between Olive, Gaughran and Jenetics was settled out of court in March. While Olive had sued Gaughran in January for allegedly soliciting Olive’s customers for a new business, the terms of the settlement reached in March required Olive to pay Gaughran €61,713. Gaughran publicly withdrew allegations he made questioning Olive’s financial viability as part of the settlement.
Speaking to The Irish Times, Jentetics declined to reveal the purchase price for PCP, which supplies laptops and tablets to schools, but said that the overall €2.5 million figure included the price Grafton paid for the company and an injection of cash into the business to fund expansion.
“We were one of the first Microsoft Showcase schools in the country,” Jentetics said. “My path crossed in transition year with Ian Gaughran when he was leading up Microsoft’s development in the education sector. So we did rub shoulders and cross paths, and he actually helped me get some of my first summer jobs as well. ” In a statement, Gaughran said he was “honoured” to be appointed as Eduvolve’s chief executive.
The investment, he said, “allows us to build on three decades of trusted relationships with schools and businesses across Ireland, while accelerating our vision for the future”. PCP recently won a €2 million contract with the Kerry Education and Training Board to supply Microsoft Windows-based laptops and devices to schools and to service them over the lifetime of the agreement.
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