Jennifer Corley | Founder | EquiTrace
EquiTrace was founded in 2019 by Jennifer Corley and her husband. The head office is at the National Equine Innovation Centre at the Irish National Stud. The motto of the company is Smart Farms Need Smart Solutions.
Jennifer comes from the background of an equine surgeon. Her husband is an internationally recognised specialist in Equine medicine. Together they are focused on bringing the equine industry into the digital age. EquiTrace is her second company after her first company Veterinary Advances which is the leading creator of Apps for veterinarians.
Our mission is to bring horse identification and health care into the digital age, revolutionise the rapid identification of horses and recording of health data, eradicate human error in drug administration and provide the accurate health records essential to veterinarians to advance horse welfare.
– JENNIFER CORLEY
The following are Jennifer’s motivators that motivated her to be an entrepreneur:
– As a clinician, Jennifer could see the serious problems of lack of access to good medical records made for both individuals and animals. Veterinary research could not progress for simple lack of data, laments Jennifer.
– Jennifer was mindful of the pressure the racing industry has come under around welfare issues and medication use. The racing industry needs to make sure everyone has access to the correct rules and can properly record all the medicines used. Having the data to keep is making positive change. All are aware if something isn’t measured it is not done.
– Thirdly the new national HISA regulations in the USA for the welfare and safety of racehorses are excellent, but they do require a lot of record-keeping. Jennifer could see both sides; why stringent new regulations were necessary but also how genuinely difficult it was for horse people to comply with the stringent regulations
We are a small team with a truly global market opportunity and we are very much at the right place at the right time but it is a huge challenge. There is a huge demand for the type of technology we have that can trace horses’ movement, and medication use and help with BioSecurity. Growing the team and bringing in strong professionals like my new CEO Killian Gaffney with the experience necessary to meet these challenges has been key.
– JENNIFER CORLEY
According to Jennifer the following exceptional characteristic which makes EquiTrace, stand out from the rest is that it has a unique combination of highly specialised founders with over 50 years of combined experience in the equine world. As veterinarians, she believes that they are uniquely placed to understand the regulations which must be complied with on one side and the hands-on experience of the environment in which the technology must be used. She proudly speaks about Dr Paul Hayton their CTO who has received his Doctorate from Oxford University and has been able to create the technology suitable to meet the needs of not just farms but international organisations and ultimately governments.
Quality and integrity are built into every part of our product; we eliminate human error and make compliance effortless.
– JENNIFER CORLEY
The Entrepreneur’s Energizers:
The feedback they receive from their customers helps the team to stay motivated. EquiTrace has had some phenomenal feedback. For her to have Dr. Nathaniel White, one of the most eminent veterinarians in the USA and director of the Equine Disease Communication Centre describe her technology as “a game changer for horse health” is incredible.
But she also loves the testimony they receive from the horsemen and women on the ground. This technology is making their lives so much easier. Everyone in the horse world just wants to do the best possible job they can to keep horses healthy declares Jennifer.
Jennifer discerns that she can make a larger impact on horse health and welfare with EquiTrace than ever she could have as a practising vet. She can’t wait to see the impact this venture of hers will have as they make a transit from helping farms, to their integration with major organisations like the US jockey club and ultimately creating national horse health traceability solutions.
She also adds that horses don’t get Covid, but have been impacted in a very similar way by diseases like herpes and influenza. To be able to help identify those early and save animals from potentially fatal diseases is a great motivation, she shares.
Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, be part of a network. Seek out other women who are further down the process and find a mentor. Fellow women entrepreneurs have been a great support in my journey. The Enterprise Ireland female entrepreneur programs which are sponsored by KPMG were invaluable to me. They helped to understand how to structure the company, the process of raising investment and all of the other technical challenges in getting a start-up company to scale. The honesty of fellow women in these programs helps. Coming from a very male-dominated profession I had not worked with large numbers of females before and found it incredibly empowering.
– JENNIFER CORLEY’S WORDS OF WISDOM FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
