In 2011, Finn Murphy realised that a career as an astronaut was probably out of reach. He searched for inspiration that would help propel his prospects into orbit — and he found it from an unlikely source.
Flicking on the Facebook-focused movie The Social Network changed everything for Murphy — pressing blast off on a career that has seen the 28-year-old start two companies and recently being promoted to partner at the Dublin-based venture capital firm, Frontline Ventures.
“This is totally mental, but I watched The Social Network in 2011, and it was when [the film] said ‘A million dollars isn’t cool. Do you know what is cool? A billion dollars,” he says with a laugh. “I just turned around and said, ‘You know what? This does seem like a bit of a buzz’.”
The movie prompted Murphy to start investigating software, and he fell in love with the concept of helping to build and create various technology companies. Two tech startups later, and now in a leading venture capital role, it’s fair to say Murphy hasn’t looked back — or up to the sky — wondering what could have been.
Earlier this month, Frontline announced Murphy was promoted to partner of the Dublin-based VC firm — which has offices in Dublin, London and San Francisco and has €250m funds under management.
The new job puts Murphy into a leading role at Frontline, alongside founders and fellow partners Will Prendergast, Shay Garvey and William McQuillan. Ex-Twitter Ireland boss Stephen McIntyre is also a partner, as well as Brennan O'Donnell. David Clarke and Steve Collins are both venture partners.
Founded in 2012, Frontline describes itself as an expert in international expansion, investing in two different ways: Seed, a pan-European fund that speeds up ideas from inception, and its X investment, which is a growth-stage fund for fast and frictionless US-Europe expansion.
Frontline has backed over 70 business-to-business-focused entrepreneurs across Europe and the US, and is known for investing early. It has had numerous successful exits, including Pointy, which Google acquired in a deal said to be worth €147m, and UCD spin-out Logentries, which Rapid7 bought for around $68m.
In the new role, Murphy has big ambitions to continue putting his stamp on specific investments.
“If you are a crazy ambitious person with a lot of people telling you ‘no’, then we are the fund of choice to speak through your crazy idea, and we are in a position to be able to back those people and make those things a reality,” he says.
Challenges in VC are always on Murphy’s mind, with the competition heating up between firms which are all battling it out to find the next big thing and leading talent. He is keen to get Frontline on the front foot and get the best founders to choose his firm.
“The best people are people like Shane Curran [who founded tech company Evervault and secured $16m (€13.7m) in funding at the age of 20]. He had all of the best funds in the world wanting to invest. You are there as the Dublin-based fund breaking in saying ‘We’re great too’.
“Flashback [to when] the Collison brothers were Irish 18-year-olds — would they have been able to raise money in Ireland? I don’t think so. Now, with that increased awareness, you need to be focused on why this amazing person who is building an amazing business or product should want to take your money.
“This is one thing about being a younger partner,” he adds. “I might not have built a multi-million dollar business or taken a company to IPO, but I’m a regular human who can have a normal conversation with you. If you are doing well, I’ll tell you. If you are doing badly, I’ll help you get through it.”
Growing up in the Dublin suburb of Rathfarnham, Murphy was more interested in sailing and other water sports than identifying the next Irish tech unicorn. Murphy says his parents helped inspire his career. His mother, Cathy McAleavey, competed in the 1988 Olympics in Seoul at sailing and worked as an artist.
“If you are going to do it, do it to be good at it,” he says of his mother’s advice to him and his two sisters when growing up. The advice paid off not just for Murphy but for his sister Annalise — who won a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics in Rio at sailing.
“I might think I’ve worked hard sometimes, but seeing the level of commitment and dedication she has, it is just above and beyond anything else I know,” he says.
Murphy harboured an ambition to become an astronaut, leading to his decision to study mechanical engineering and maths at Trinity College in 2011. While at Trinity, other interests caught his eye. He was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug and eventually organised events and club nights — including a stint as the student union’s entertainment officer in 2014.
During Murphy’s time in events, he organised a murder mystery party on a rented train travelling between Dublin’s Heuston Station and Sligo. He also helped organise the Trinity Ball, which included working with famous artists like Basement Jaxx and Years and Years.
Murphy learned some important business lessons.
“That was the first exposure to business failure; it isn’t fun,” he says. “It was a good crash course in marketing, operations, figuring out what people want, and everything in between.”
While working on events, Murphy was also busy getting to grips with forming startups.
In 2014, he co-founded Hook, an app where friends could notify each other with what they were doing and ask if they wanted to join, but it didn’t work out.
After an internship with the US Senate in Washington, he started his second company, iDly Systems, in 2015, which issued student IDs on to mobile apps .
The company eventually joined Plynk but didn’t work out as planned.
“It was just the classic startup,” he says. “The wheels came off the wagon. Growth wasn’t what we expected it to be.”
Murphy believes the taste of starting two businesses and experiencing the highs and lows has helped him excel with Frontline.
“I don’t know how you could have a conversation with an entrepreneur without it,” he says. “I just tell them, ‘it’s going to be really hard.’ I’ve been there and seen it before — you can have a credible conversation, and that is half the battle — being able to empathise with someone.”
In April 2018, the opportunity to join Frontline came about after several friends pointed him to the open position. It was a junior role, but his friends were sure this was the job for him, especially as he still harboured an ambition to start more companies.
Murphy fell in love with the job.
“I joke about this, but I would do the job for free,” he says. “My job is to spend all day finding and talking to interesting people working on interesting ideas. If we think those ideas are interesting enough, then we get to invest in those businesses.
“My favourite companies are the ones where I meet and say, ‘I want that to exist.’ I am in a position where I get to invest millions of euro to at least give it a chance.”
Since those early days, Murphy has excelled with Frontline.
Some of his most notable investments include life sciences tech firm Qualio, which recently raised $50m (€42m), Evervault, and the German-based tech firm Localyze.
Murphy says he tries not to be too prescriptive when it comes to his thesis on investing, but he always looks for ambitious founders. He also likes companies that help to automate away the increasing complexities of doing business.
Frontline invests in companies at an early stage, and with tech companies thriving, it is reaping the rewards. At the turn of the year, it launched a new €70m fund, Frontline Seed fund III, to support European business-to-business technology founders eyeing the global market.
Murphy said Frontline recently carried out a review of its portfolio and was impressed with the results.
“In our business, we see a lot of our portfolio doing well,” he says. “We are starting to see a couple of break-out companies that could potentially be public businesses, or even larger than that,” he says.
With more Irish companies managing to achieve unicorn status, or a valuation of over $1bn (€800m), Murphy believes the tech sector here is set to thrive.
“You can’t be what you can’t see,” he says. “If there are no indigenous unicorn founders in Ireland who built their businesses here, then it is hard [for others] to have the aspiration to stay and build large companies. Fundamentally we are seeing that starting to change.”
Murphy points to firms like Intercom as inspiring Irish entrepreneurs. He also tips Tines to become a unicorn in the next two years.
The spillover effects of these successful companies are being felt, with Murphy adding that Irish companies can now raise more capital domestically. There are still some challenges for the sector to deal with, however.
“People used to say there was no access to capital in Ireland, but that is no longer the case,” he says. “You can raise $50m to $100m for a business out of Ireland.
“Are we still waiting on the talent pool to be here, though?
"There are all the people you need to take a company from €1m to €10m in annually recurring revenue. All of the talent that you need to take it from €10m to €100m, we are not quite there yet — but that is going to change.”
With Murphy now getting ready to take on his new role as partner, he believes the future is bright for Frontline. He believes the fund is making the case well to the best talent and is set to skyrocket as a result.
“I am extremely optimistic about Frontline,” he says.
“Progressively, a lot of the companies we are trying to invest in have other funds trying to invest in them,” he adds. “More and more, we are able to win and argue the case as to why we are the right partners for these companies over time.”
