Due to low company tax and authorities incentives, Dublin has hosted the European headquarters of many massive US know-how firms—Google, Meta, LinkedIn and Microsoft all have places of work within the metropolis’s Silicon Docks.
“The massive US firms operated independently of the startup world for a few years,” explains Will Prendergast, companion at Frontline Ventures. “However up to now 5 years, US know-how firms have been constructing product and engineering capabilities right here, and that expertise is beginning to spill out, driving startup creation.”
Authorities help by way of Enterprise Eire’s Pre-Seed Begin Fund, designed to speed up early stage startups, and hubs akin to Dogpatch Labs are supporting this wave of recent expertise. “Eire does have a capital situation,” says worker advantages startup Kota cofounder Luke Mackey. “There are many methods to lift €1 million however not some ways to lift €10 million.”
With latest funding rounds led by each US and native VCs of €10 million ($11.1 million) or extra, that appears set to vary.
Openvolt
Openvolt is constructing an API that collates carbon emissions knowledge throughout Europe to provide to power transition firms. It’s no coincidence that the purpose is to make an API that’s as easy to work with as Stripe’s cost system—Don O’Leary, Openvolt’s CTO, was Stripe’s EMEA head of buyer engineering. With CEO Dave Curran, he launched the corporate in 2023. Openvolt’s first step was securing real-time knowledge from 90 million good meters throughout the continent, with fuel consumption and the carbon depth of electrical energy provides to observe. The corporate raised a pre-seed €1.5 million ($1.6 million) led by Cavalry Ventures. Its first consumer is Helios Vitality, which is able to use Openvolt knowledge in its audit of consumer’s power use. openvolt.com
Tines
Tines is an automation platform for IT and safety groups to automate any handbook process utilizing a menu of seven frequent instructions, akin to “HTTP request,” which sends or receives knowledge from one other system. Tines targets easy duties that groups spend essentially the most time on—onboarding customers or triaging low-level safety incidents as an example—to scale back “alert fatigue.” Launched with an $11 million (€10.2 million) Collection A spherical led by Accel, Index Ventures, and Blossom Capital in December 2019, the corporate has raised $146.2 million (€130.6 million) general. With 200 workers throughout the USA, Eire, Australia, and Canada, income has grown 200 % since Might 2024. Clients embrace Databricks, Mars Inc., and Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory. tines.com
Marker Video
Marker Video is a user-generated branded content material platform, promoting product evaluation movies by abnormal individuals to manufacturers and retailers for a flat charge. Launched as Marker Content material in 2022 with €600,000 ($670,00) from Enterprise Eire, founder Greta Dunne switched from weblog submit to video in February 2023. “I met the top of selling at Estée Lauder who had simply pivoted from influencers to abnormal individuals after their knowledge confirmed the extra genuine the content material, the higher the response,” the previous copywriter explains. Clients can scan a QR code in motels, or on merchandise, and add video evaluations that are tagged and listed. The movies promote for between €100 and €200 ($111 to $223). Manufacturers obtain limitless use and creators are given 50 % of the charge. A stealth launch in April and offers with Unilever and Acer Motels noticed 5,000 creators a month be part of the positioning. A second spherical raised €200,000 ($223,000) from Enterprise Eire and investor angels akin to Brian Caulfield, in addition to David Byrne of Digital Irish to fund a full launch within the fall. markervideo.com
CaliberAI
CaliberAI is an AI-powered content material moderation platform that searches for dangerous and defamatory content material. Appearing as a “spell examine for libel and hate speech,” it notifies information publishers and social media customers after they’re getting near the road. It was based by a father-and-son staff—Conor Brady was editor-in-chief of The Irish Occasions and Neil Brady was a journalist for The Guardian. An Enterprise Eire grant of €300,000 ($335,000), adopted by €850,000 ($950,000) pre-seed launched the corporate in 2019. The staff trains CaliberAI and different massive language fashions on particularly created knowledge units—a paucity of defamatory materials to coach on meant the corporate constructed its personal. Clients embrace Mediahuis, the Every day Mail, Meta, and quite a few legislation companies concerned in AI. “Misinformation and hate speech is eroding democracy as a result of information publishers are on their knees,” explains Neil. “Generative AI chatbots and the businesses that make them will not be going to be afforded the identical authorized protections as social media customers.” caliberai.internet
EdgeTier
“Customer support is damaged—nobody likes preventing with a chatbot to get via to a human to unravel their downside,” says EdgeTier CEO and cofounder Shane Lynn. The corporate’s AI displays buyer conversations with name facilities, listens out for points and affords coaching to people primarily based on the conversations it has analyzed. Lynn, CCO Bart Lehane and CTO Ciarán Tobin launched with a seed spherical in 2019 and have since raised €7.5 million ($8.3 million) in two rounds lead by Smedvig Capital and ACT VC. The corporate now operates in additional than 20 international locations throughout Europe and the Americas, working with Abercrombie & Fitch, Ryanair, the TUI journey firm, Electrical Eire, and Tipico. edgetier.com
Noloco
Noloco is a platform for any enterprise to construct an app utilizing a point-and-click interface, with out the necessity for software program or coding abilities. Founder Darragh Mc Kay describes it because the Webflow for enterprise apps. As a software program engineer, Mc Kay realized “how few of the instruments I had had been obtainable to non-software engineers and the way sophisticated they had been to make use of”. Noloco has a sequence of templates for frequent HR, undertaking administration and stock apps in addition to a clean canvas the place customers can drag and drop the duties they want apps to carry out. Based in summer season 2021, seed funding in February 2022 raised $1.4 million (€1.8 million), led by Unpopular Ventures and Accel Angels, and the app builder was launched in July 2022. Clients are SMEs—primarily development firms, advertising and marketing companies, accountants and legal professionals. Accessible as a subscription mannequin, income has grown 140 % up to now 12 months. noloco.io
Inspeq ai
Inspeq.ai is an analysis platform for product groups creating AI functions. It displays app growth, particularly LLMs, to ensure that the output is correct, constant, doesn’t hallucinate and is free from biases and damaging tones. The concept for the corporate got here to CEO Apoorva Kumar and CTO Ramanujam MV, previously product managers at Microsoft and Meta respectively. The pair discovered that the LLMs they labored with would usually “hallucinate,” producing grammatically right however factually inaccurate data. After constructing a proof of idea on the Founders Expertise Accelerator in late 2023 that lowered hallucination points by 80 %, they raised €1.1 million ($1.2 million) in a spherical lead by Positive Valley Ventures in Might 2024 to develop operations in Eire, London, and India. inspeq.ai
Barespace.io
Barespace CEO and cofounder Conor Moules labored at an area hair salon when he was an adolescent. Then, when he joined meals supply app Bamboo in his twenties, he realized to his shock that typical salon transactions had been greater than 10 occasions bigger than typical meals supply orders. He based Barespace to assist barbershops, salons, and spa companies automate their enterprise administration with a complete SaaS platform that mixes appointment scheduling, consumer historical past and advertising and marketing designed for use by non-technical workers. Based in March 2022 by Moules and COO Glenn McGoldrick, it closed a €1.5 million ($1.6 million) pre-seed spherical in August 2024 from traders akin to Brian Caulfield, chair of Scale Eire; Barry Napier, CEO of Cubic Telecom; and Rick Kelley, the previous managing director of Meta Eire. Barespace has processed greater than €10 million ($11.1 million) in funds in its first 20 months since launch, rising the enterprise by greater than 300 %. barespace.io
Gazelle Wind Energy
Gazelle Wind Energy is constructing floating wind turbine platforms far out within the deep sea. Ninety-nine per cent of wind farms are mounted to the ocean ground in comparatively shallow depths. Nonetheless, extra constant and stronger winds are discovered above a lot deeper water. Antonio García—racing yacht engineer and uncle to Gazelle founder Jon Salazar—devised a dynamic floating platform with anchor traces connected to the seabed, accompanied by a counterweight that balances the platform in tough seas. The corporate has raised $11.3 million (€10.1 million) in fairness up to now, led by Katapult Group, and has a sequence A spherical looming. Salazar’s subsequent purpose is decreasing the associated fee to succeed in the “Henry Ford second”—an affordable, scalable platform that’s easy to assemble, set up, and function. gazellewindpower.com
Antler Bio
Antler Bio’s EpiHerd screening platform examines RNA in blood from dairy cows—the device by which genes are expressed within the atmosphere. “Farmers take into consideration breeding for good genetics,” cofounder Maria Jensen explains, “then surprise why the animal isn’t delivering.” EpiHerd reveals environmental results on gene expression—illness, food regimen, farm infrastructure or stress—present advisable actions particular to farm and animals, and monitor the impression adjustments. Cofounded by Jensen and Nathalie Conte in November 2020, the corporate raised greater than €1 million ($1.1 million), led by the Nest household workplace. The primary paying farm in November 2023 elevated milk manufacturing by 30 %. Antler expects to succeed in 173 farms by the tip of 2024. Plans embrace validating EpiHerd to display screen for endemic ailments, akin to bovine TB. antlerbio.com
This text first appeared within the November/December 2024 situation of WIRED UK.
