Teenage Dublin tech entrepreneur Shane Curran is hiring 20 new recruits in the capital for his 'Stripe for data privacy' startup Muon.

The former BT Young Scientist of the Year and Forbes 30 under 30 listee secured enough points in his Leaving Cert this week to study business and law at UCD.

He is also currently raising a seed investment round - likely to be several million euro - for the firm, it is understood.

Muon, a software platform to help companies manage how they process people's data securely, is working with at least one well-known US tech giant.

Inspired by billionaire Limerick brothers John and Patrick Collison's' payments tech firm Stripe, which is valued at $9.2bn, Muon also applies a concept that Curran came up with called QCrypt, by which data is broken up into shards, which can then be spread across storage nodes in different legal jurisdictions.

"Based on this concept, companies can process data without seeing it, storing it or holding it," said 18-year-old Curran.

"We allow people to grant companies temporary access to their personal data so a customer such as a tech firm can process it in a secure enclave.

"There are currently five of us all working remotely. We plan to hire at least 20 people in Dublin, and will be seeking to increase our R&D - which will take place here - and get enterprise customers on board. We have significant revenue targets, and are aiming for exponential growth.

"Though I've previously led teams of 20 or 30 contractors, this is my first time hiring this many people.

"I am spending more time in San Francisco these days, and met Patrick Collison there earlier this year. We'll also have an office there, where the focus will be on business development," Curran said.

"We're also working on an identity solution, which is an alternative way to logging in using your Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn profile to log into a website or online facility. It will involve holding information such as your government-issued ID, utility bills or bank details using a solution that is built on top of our data privacy platform," he added.

He previously founded Libramatic, a tech startup for libraries to manage their book collections, when he was just 12.

He has yet to decide whether he will take up his place at UCD.

Sunday Indo Business