Eventually, in 1991, IONA Technologies, was founded by Horn and fellow TCD academics Sean Baker and Annrai O’Toole, each of the three putting in 1,000 Irish pounds for starting capital.

IONA received limited support from Trinity College, including an office with a desk and phone in a TCD innovation centre on Westland Row.

[4] IONA found the Irish market (business expansion schemes, banks, venture capital firms) unwilling to invest, secured some IDA Ireland support, grew.

Despite having just 11 staff, they then sold a multi-national network management system to Motorola, and then a solution to Boeing,[4] and were able to become the first Irish company to float on the NASDAQ,[2] achieving the fifth largest debut on that exchange to date.

This group consisted of individuals and technologies involved in the various open-source projects and communities, including those that joined as part of the acquisition of LogicBlaze.