‘The Irish Times’ Business Person of the Month: David Walsh

Carlow-based Netwatch chief executive David Walsh is the recipient of The Irish Times Business Person of the Month Award for April, in association with KPMG.

At the end of last month, Walsh merged his company with two US businesses and one UK company, vastly expanding the potential market reach for the business. The newly-formed Netwatch Group now includes the Carlow company, California-based National Monitoring Centre, CalAtlantic in Texas and Onwatch Multifire in Sussex.

The deal, funded by private equity firm Riverside, will double the company’s workforce of 220 employees and sees the Netwatch founders retain the second largest shareholding in the new group.

Walsh has been successful in attracting investment to Netwatch from a variety of sources over the past number of years. In December 2014, the company got €1 million from a Davy fund and, in June 2016, it received €9 million from BDO.

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Netwatch was founded by Walsh and his business partner in 2003 after a friend was attacked responding to an alarm at his business.

Netwatch introduced the first real time remote visual monitoring security system to the Irish market and now has offices across the Ireland, Britain and the US.

The newly formed Netwatch Group now has contracted revenues in excess of €60 million and will be monitoring 300,000 customer sites across four continents.