NEWRY-based Healthy Buildings (Ireland), trading as HBE has secured a £500,000 loan from the Growth Loan Fund which it will use to create 10 jobs and support its BlueZone Technologies subsidiary to further develop and market its innovative ‘manager’ software platform.
BlueZone is a specialist software solutions company that develops products for the management of supply chain, health & safety, inductions and compliance e-learning within the built environment.
Chief executive Adrian Byrne said: “BlueZone Technologies has been developing our 'manager' product for the past 18 months and launched it into the market in March.
"Research has shown that many customers want less software in their organisations. With each department having their own software packages to undertake one or two specific compliance tasks, this has led to data variations between systems, which makes decision-making and planning difficult.
"There is a clear demand for an all-in-one solution to optimise business operations."
‘Manager’ is a system that can control, monitor, report and manage all aspects of health and safety within the built environment. It will help eliminate paper records and allow companies to access critical data about their estate, any time and from anywhere.
"Customer response to date has been excellent," Byrne adds.
"We’ve started rolling manager out to a number of existing clients within our sister company, HBE, and we’ve recently secured contracts with two major brands, one in Northern Ireland and one in Scotland.”
Jenna Mairs, investment manager at WhiteRock Capital Partners, which oversees the Growth Loan Fund, said: “With more businesses shifting to digital data management, Adrian and his team have created an innovative product that will be used by some of the world’s largest brands.
“The IT sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of the Northern Ireland economy and it continues to go from strength to strength. The company has ambitious targets for growth over the next two years and we look forward to supporting the firm’s future successes.”
