A start-up technology firm has secured investment of €1m (£0.9m) for product development from the European Institute of Technology and Innovation (EIT).

Software company Xpand is supported by the Ulster Bank Entrepreneur Accelerator programme for small firms, based at the bank’s headquarters.

Now Xpand will be developing its insights programme, which is designed to support development by planning and addressing the needs of economies.

Its dashboard and analytics platform allows the impact of public policy interventions to be monitored.

Founders Matt Barnes and James Gumble said they developed the idea for the software after realising that government bodies can encounter problems in measuring the impact of their economic development projects and programmes on the wider economy.

They received mentorship and help with funding application procedures through the Accelerator programme.

Mr Gumble said: “There are so many complex factors at play when you are trying to measure something like public spending.

“We knew the problem was crying out for a digital solution, but we couldn’t find any software on the market that could track the impact of public investment quickly and effectively.

“This gave us the idea to develop our Xpand platform to look at the wider impact such spending has on local and national economies.”

Mr Gumble added Insights can be customised to work in any EU economy and monitor millions of pounds of spending.

“We are working on enhancing the programme, and support from EIT will help us deliver the next phase of the project across Europe and the globe,” he said.

Source: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/technology/tech-startup-xpand-wins-1m-funding-38184869.html