‘Retro’ Clon firm vying for national business title

A CLONAKILTY business has been awarded a local enterprise award and is in the mix for a national title.

RetroKit received the accolade from Cork County Council’s Local Enterprise Offices (LEO) for building a successful business despite the challenging times of the past two years.

It will now compete against 28 other businesses at the national enterprise awards in Dublin next month which celebrate the achievements of Ireland’s micro-enterprise sector.

Representing LEO Cork North and West, RetroKit was founded by Xavier Dubuisson, Shay Kavanagh and Susan O’Flaherty.

It is the country’s first digital platform dedicated to housing providers and the home energy renovation sector as a support in planning and implementing home energy upgrade projects at scale.

The platform uses big data and machine learning systems to facilitate decision-making, increase productivity and reduce costs.

RetroKit’s mission is to empower clients to reduce the carbon footprint in housing, to alleviate fuel poverty, and also to improve the health and wellbeing of householders.

Susan said: ‘We were all too aware of the enormous challenge in Ireland and globally to retrofit millions of homes by 2030.

‘So the aim of RetroKit is to make this process more efficient for retrofit professionals, allowing them to streamline their processes and reduce costs through digitalisation. As it is such a fast-growing sector, having the support of the LEO Cork North and West has been invaluable to us and we look forward to representing Cork North and our region at the national finals.’

Cork county mayor Cllr. Gillian Coughlan said: ‘The past two years have been an extraordinarily challenging time for businesses, but it is heartening to see how new businesses have harnessed their expertise and energy to build hugely successful businesses that are going from strength to strength.’