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Ireland has long been a fertile ground for innovation, entrepreneurship and bold thinking but now more than ever, it’s time to shine a spotlight on the next generation of game-changers. The Business Post’s Hot 100 Start-Ups supplement celebrates the energy, creativity and resilience of Ireland’s emerging businesses. These companies are not just shaping industries — they are fuelling economic growth, creating jobs and transforming local communities.
From Mayo-based payroll software business Payslip, which was started by Fidelma McGuirk and has to date raised €12.4 million, to cloud software business Greyscout which raised €3.5 million in seed funding last year, these companies are among the greatest in fresh thinking and dynamic business leadership on display here in Ireland.
In conjunction with our partners in Enterprise Ireland, the Business Post is delighted to celebrate the best in Irish ingenuity, entrepreneurship and endeavour. Start-ups are the lifeblood of a vibrant economy. They bring fresh ideas, disrupt traditional models, and challenge established players. From tech innovators to sustainability pioneers, the Hot 100 Start-Ups represent the best of what Ireland has to offer.
By highlighting their stories, we’re championing the brave entrepreneurs who dare to build something new, who see opportunities where others see obstacles.
But it’s more than just celebrating success; it’s about fostering a culture of innovation and inspiration. When we spotlight these start-ups, we encourage the next wave of founders to follow their dreams and push the boundaries. We show that Ireland is a dynamic hub for start-up activity, attracting investment, talent, and global attention.
This list is not just a testament to hard work and ingenuity — it’s a glimpse into the future of business. These 100 companies are the ones to watch, and we’re proud to champion them in our supplement. We hope you enjoy our list.
Acel Energy is based in Monaghan town and wants to bring solar charging in all of its forms to a wider audience. Founded in 2022 by Barry Sherry and Declan McDonald, Acel sells solar panels, battery storage and energy management systems, developed by third parties and connected by its own management software solution, to businesses.
Sherry and McDonald each bring significant experience to the business. Sherry is the former head of energy solutions at Kingspan while McDonald is the previous owner of renewable energy company Eco Systems.
The company’s vision is for rural charging stations to be set up close to renewable energy sources such as wind or solar farms, with the battery acting as a buffer to bridge any lack of wind or sun.
The company’s vision is for rural charging stations to be set up close to renewable energy sources
Co Galway-based Affinity EV has big goals and is racing towards a target of having 5,000 dealerships using its electric vehicle (EV) charging platform by the end of this year.
Founded in 2020 by Raj Lyons, the business is based in Ballinasloe. Affinity provides a link between EV makers and energy companies to enable dealerships to sell an all-in-one offering to customers when purchasing an EV.
The platform is the first of its kind in the world and the business has created a method where the dealer can sell all the services required on the energy side as part of the transaction for the physical EV itself.
Lyons got the idea from his prior 16 years working in the auto industry. He recognised that the shift to EVs was happening, but the sector wasn’t ready for all it entailed.
Last year, Affinity launched in the UK through a partnership with the Peter Vardy Group.
There are robots that clean and then there are robots that take the concept to a medical level. Akara Robotics, a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin, has developed ultraviolet light-based disinfection robots.
The business was founded by Niamh Donnelly, Conor McGinn, Cian Donovan and Eamonn Burke in 2019. The robots developed by Akara are designed to clean rooms autonomously by learning the room structure of a hospital, for instance, and disinfecting where it can reach with the UV light.
This helps to substantially reduce the amount of time the staff need to spend manually cleaning a room. According to the founders, the time staff spend cleaning can be measured in seconds rather than minutes once the robots are deployed.
Keeping things natural is the focus of Co Kerry-based All Real Nutrition. As the name suggests, the goal of the natural protein bar company is to keep all of its ingredients real and natural.
Founded by Ross McDowell and Niall Harty in 2020, the Farranfore business started out after McDowell discovered biltong, a dried beef snack, while living in South Africa. Upon moving back to Ireland, he used Irish beef to bring a high-protein snack to Ireland.
Having secured partnerships with BWG, Tesco and Musgrave in Ireland, the business has since expanded to selling its products in the UK and US.
The focus on keeping things natural goes beyond the ingredients in the bars. The wrappers used for the products are compostable, to aid with sustainability.
Back to Work Connect was founded by Gina Oglesby in 2022 and is based in Dublin city. The company is an education and employment career hub which helps build a robust talent pipeline by reconnecting midlife workers to education and employment for upskilling.
The target workers are those returning to work, such as after a break for childcare, and those seeking to change career.
Oglesby developed the idea for the business while studying innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise at UCD.
The focus is very much on career development, which differentiates it from traditional recruitment services.
When candidates search for a role on Back to Work Connect’s platform, training courses associated with the role are also presented to the user. The benefit for companies seeking staff through the platform is access to workers they may have previously overlooked who are willing to upskill to meet a role’s requirements.
The target workers are those returning to work, such as after a break for childcare, and those seeking to change career
The BackAware Belt is a wearable technology designed to improve posture, exercise technique and alleviate back pain.
The business was founded by Eoin Everard in 2022 and is based in Kilkenny city. Equipped with sensors, BackAware Belt monitors your back position in real-time and provides gentle reminders for correction.
The belt connects to a smartphone app, where you can access follow-along videos that display your back position, giving you confidence that you are doing everything safely and correctly.
BiaSol is an Offaly-based business that is on a mission to eliminate food waste by using ingredients that are left over from the manufacturing process.
Founded in Tullamore by siblings Niamh and Ruairi Dooley, the business was started in 2020 and upcycles food ingredients.
The first range of products came from spent grain from breweries, with BiaSol (also known as Lurgan Foods), working with four independent craft breweries to source the grain.
The business is working with O’Hara’s brewing in Co Carlow, Brú in Co Meath, Dead Centre in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and Ballykilcavan in Co Laois to reduce their waste.
BiaSol’s products include scone and pancake mixes and morning breakfast cereals, all developed using upcycled grains.
BiaSol has also become an official supplier to the IRFU and the business aims to work with larger food brands to help upcycle their spent ingredients.
The inspiration for companies on the Hot 100 varies wildly but few can claim an origin quite like Binarii Labs. The business was founded by Aidan Finn, Steven Garner, Nigel Carter and Ciarán McNamee in 2021 and has developed a product which is aimed at protecting data by ensuring no single file is ever kept completely in one place.
The concept came from Garner, who was inspired in part by the Harry Potter books. Garner was disillusioned with how data was stored from his own experience in the financial sector. A puzzle in the Harry Potter books, that involved seven pieces being hidden across the map, got him thinking about doing something along the same lines with data.
The inspiration has grown Binarii, which is based in NovaUCD in Dublin, into a business that has raised €3 million to date and now has 20 staff.
Binarii has established offices in Asia and the UK, with plans to double staff count and add a US office.
BioEnz Technologies is a Waterford-based business focused on enzyme discovery and microbiological solutions. BioEnz is based on over 20 years of research with a proprietary biobank and discovery platform. It is developing new and improved enzyme and bespoke biocatalyst solutions for more sustainable and impactful environmental, nutritional and therapeutic applications.
The business was founded in 2020 by Lee Coffey, Tim Roche and Jens Bleiel and played a big role in addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, where it worked with South East Technological University to develop a method of accelerating the process of tests for the virus.
The business was one of 12 selected by Enterprise Ireland this year for its Prep4Seed programme, a 12-week course designed to prepare start-ups for seed investment and pitching to investors.
Bounce Insights has big plans, with goals to expand tenfold over the coming years. The business was founded by Josh Stafford, Brandon Dooley, Rónán Dowling-Cullen, Brian O’Mahony and Charlie Butler in 2019.
The business has developed a market research platform powered by artificial intelligence.
Bounce has developed its own generative AI technology that is designed to speed up the research process.
The Bounce Insights platform is designed to save marketing and research teams hours, days, or even weeks when performing research.
The business aims to be a blend between self-service market research tools and the traditional agency approach, a sort of best-of-both-worlds approach to market insights, driven by its technology stack, which is built upon OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4.
The company’s clients include Tesco, Kraft, Glanbia and Mondelez.
Brightbeam is growing fast, on course to double the number of staff it had at the start of 2024 to 28 by the end of this year.
The Irish AI business, which operates on a fully remote basis, was founded by Paul Savage, Brian Hanly and Phil Black in 2023 and has raised €450,000 in funding to date.
The company helps businesses make better use of AI, finding ways to adapt it for use in their processes. Savage was previously with Nearform, where he was chief operating officer, and all of the co-founders have known each other for decades.
Brightbeam expects to close its first US deal by the end of this year and to grow further in that market into 2025.
Bundledocs provides a means of compiling legal bundles or briefs digitally, replacing a previously paper-based approach.
The business, based in Ballincollig, Co Cork, was founded by Brian Kenneally, Lisa Walsh and James Hogan in 2019. It currently has 18 staff and had a turnover of €3.5 million last year.
The idea came to Hogan after a customer approached him in a prior role about finding a solution of this nature. Hogan couldn’t find one so teamed up with Kenneally and Walsh to develop one instead.
The business has set up an office in Canada to service the North American market and aid its growth. It has already enjoyed strong growth in the Irish, UK and Australian markets.
The expansion in the US should result in the company doubling its turnover in the next two years, according to estimates by Bundledocs.
The business has set up an office in Canada to service the North American market and aid its growth
Capella Workplace Solutions is an Irish-owned hybrid working solutions provider. The company, which was founded in 2020 by Criona Turley and Victoria Yanakos, was established to help businesses navigate the almost overnight transition to remote and hybrid working during the pandemic.
Capella’s software facilitates hot desk booking, office heat mapping, work-from-home risk assessments, as well as analytical tools to optimise collaboration in the workplace.
The business also offers data and insights into how hybrid working is performing across a business, which can be used to inform company policy. The ESRI, the Department of Social Protection and Barnardo’s are among the Irish organisations using Capella’s technology.
The company is in the process of completing the roll-out of 30 roles, announced last year, which will more than double its workforce as it aims to generate over €10 million in annual revenue by 2027.
The Corporate Governance Institute is a Dublin-based training business that was founded by David W Duffy and Anthony Quigley in 2020. It currently has 30 staff and has raised €2.5 million in funding.
The business attracted 18 people to do its first course in September 2020 across the UK and Ireland. By the end of that year, another 60 people went through its courses. It now expects to double its annual revenues to €8 million by the end of this year.
The institute provides two diploma courses, one in corporate governance and one in environmental, social and governance (ESG). Both are accredited by Glasgow Caledonian University.
The Corporate Governance Institute has customers in over 50 countries but the bulk of the business remains in the UK and Ireland. The goal for the business is to continue its global reach and add 10 more jobs by the end of 2025, bringing total staff to 40.
Cushla is a healthech based in the Guinness Enterprise Centre in Dublin. The business provides a means for patients to access their complete medical data, including from health service providers or fitness devices, in one place.
Cushla was founded by Richard Egan, Steve Szpara and Gavin Davey in 2022. The company has 12 staff and has raised €2.3 million to date. It is aiming to raise a further €5 million next year.
The business was inspired by the accessibility that banking apps created in the financial sector. Cushla aims to provide the same level of service in healthcare.
The business has been primarily focused on product development up to now, working to prove it could connect all the different information sources together. The funding round next year will be aimed at helping Cushla develop its product further and aid expansion into the US.
Emotionise AI is an artificial intelligence business that aims to teach machines to understand how humans feel and develop communications tools based on that.
The business was founded in 2018 by Marie Toft, Tim Pat Dufficy and Siva Sharma, the idea for the business grew out of Toft’s prior work experience and subsequent study in university.
It was during her studies that Toft decided to combine her research with developing a business and she joined the Going for Growth scheme with Enterprise Ireland.
Growing out initially from GPT-3, the forerunner to ChatGPT, the access to large language models provided the business with the ability to further enhance the capacity of the AI she was developing. It is now part of the high potential start-up unit (HPSU) in Enterprise Ireland.
EquiTrace is a data management start-up that has developed tools to aid the monitoring of horses. Founded by vets Kevin and Jennifer Corley in 2019, EquiTrace, which is based at the National Stud in Co Kildare, stores the information used in a horse’s passport as well as information on any medications.
The key selling point of the technology is that it improves efficiencies for people working with horses. The company’s platform is designed to give users solutions that reduce the amount of time they have to spend monitoring the health of horses.
The US is the main market for EquiTrace, where aid in time management is of particular concern, with new regulations requiring those working in the sector to provide more medical data to authorities.
The key selling point of the technology is that it improves efficiencies for people working with horses
Examfly, a Dublin-based start-up, was founded by Deirdre Lyons, originally from Ballingarry, Co. Limerick, in 2019. The business provides online training for professional services exams, such as accounting and tax. It has five staff and has raised €2 million in funding.
The interactive learning model developed by Examfly is designed to help people achieve qualifications quicker. Lyons developed the idea based on her own experiences studying in college and working in PwC and Davy.
The business has already secured work with some of the largest professional services firms in Ireland and the UK and aims to double its staff over the next two years. The goal for Lyons is to expand the business into the UK and US, while also growing in Ireland, where she believes she can repeat the success Examfly has already enjoyed.
FarmEye is a Roscommon-based agri-tech company founded by Eoghan Finneran, Joe Desbonnet and Brendan Allen in 2017. The business plans to show that farming can have a positive impact on the environment with its Earth observation technology.
The company’s technology uses satellites and a ground-based lidar (light detection and ranging) system to analyse and report biodiversity and carbon sequestration data.
The map-based soil management system can be accessed by laptop, desktop or smartphone app to maintain a record of the nutritional profile of every field on a farm.
According to FarmEye, it mapped 1.7 million hectares of fields in Ireland, the UK and Australia and recorded revenue of €1.6 million last year.
Field of Vision is a Dublin-based start-up that is helping the visually impaired have a better experience at live sporting events.
The business was founded by David Deneher, Tim Farrelly and Omar Salem in 2020 and has raised €250,000 to date.
Field of Vision is based at Dogpatch Labs and has created a haptic response tablet for use at different sports events. The device is held by the user and it buzzes to provide ideas of where the ball is and what is happening.
Having successfully completed trials with Manchester City in the English Premier League and Toyota Racing in Japan, the business secured its biggest deal to date in 2022 through a partnership with Telstra in Australia. The telco wanted to showcase its 5G technology and Field of Vision adapted its technology for use in Aussie Rules at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne.
The next step for the business is a focus on the US, particularly targeted on the state of Georgia which is a hub for sports tech and home to several major sports teams.
Future Planet was founded by Donal Daly and Ingrid De Doncker in 2021 and is an AI-powered software platform that helps businesses understand and reduce their climate emissions, while achieving their environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals.
The company has 15 staff and some significant goals, aiming for turnover of €30 million by 2029 with 500 per cent growth forecast for this year.
Future Planet’s cloud-based software intakes many data points when compiling its ESG reports. The business claims its technology produces reports in minutes which would have taken weeks to do manually.
The surge in companies in Europe that need to provide ESG reports is key to Future Planet’s bullishness.
The EU’s Corporate Social Reporting Directive (CSRD) means that more than 50,000 such businesses will need to provide such reports from January, compared to just 11,000 now.
That’s a market Future Planet is confident it can grow with and assist.
Gigable is a Dublin-based business that links freelancers or ‘gig workers’ with businesses seeking temporary staff. This includes businesses with workers such as food delivery drivers, waiting staff, security guards, warehouse operatives, kitchen porters and event stewards.
The company was founded by John Ryan in 2019. Gigable’s platform allow gig workers to accept jobs, send invoices, communicate and receive payments.
Workers on the platform also get a workplace benefits package, including digital GP services, mental healthcare, accident and injury cover. Businesses, meanwhile, can schedule and manage gigs through the platform as well as manage the workers, including assigning work and sending payments.
Investors in the business include John Herlihy, the former boss of Google Ireland, Voxpro founders Dan and Linda Kiely, and Patrick Joy, founder of Suretank and former EY entrepreneur of the year.
As the name suggests, Giyst is about giving users the gist of things. The company’s platform provides easy-to-digest summaries and highlights of meetings and conferences which help event organisers and attendees to retain value after the event has ended.
Giyst’s technology can take content from a keynote speaker or panel session and use its algorithm to extract the key points. It will then create a coherent story of either 10 per cent or 20 per cent of the original length.
The Cork company was founded by Avril Power and Colm Murphy in 2020. The idea for the business was born from Power’s own frustrations from attending conferences, as well as the explosion in video content
The key market for Giyst is the US, where the plethora of events and conferences provides a fertile field for the company to make contacts and develop partnerships.
Sometimes a name is just waiting for a business. Gráinne Mullins may not believe in nominative determinism but Grá Chocolates was the perfect fit when titling the Galway-based business.
The luxury chocolate business has expanded into the US after receiving approval from authorities there last year.
Mullins has ten years of experience working as a pastry chef in Michelin-star restaurants and Grá was a project she developed when restaurants closed during the Covid pandemic and she needed to find another way to do business.
She started the company in 2020, having got the idea from hand-painting Easter eggs for friends and family. Followers on social media asked where they could buy the chocolates and the business has taken off from there.
Grá Chocolates has been featured on the Late Late Show and an episode of Beyond the Menu with Mark Moriarty. Mullins aims to keep developing in Galway, eventually creating a visitor centre to go alongside the factory.
Green Treats is a Co Wicklow-based dog food company that is all about sustainability. Headquartered in Arklow, the business was founded by Stephen and Darren Smith in 2019.
The company develops affordable products for smaller brands from scratch and advises companies through solutions in recipe development and a new product development book on packaging.
Green Treats has enjoyed remarkable growth over its short life, working with Denzel dog food company in Britain and securing a manufacturing contract for Aldi to develop a dog dental brush treat for the company.
Through Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-Ups fund, the company was able to raise €1.8 million in early 2023, which allowed Green Treats to purchase better equipment and a brand new production facility.
Green Treats has enjoyed remarkable growth over its short life
GreyScout is a cloud software business-to-business company that works with brands such as NETGEAR and Dorel to monitor online channels for intellectual property (IP) infringements.
Those infringements can cover anything from counterfeit products to fake accounts on social media sites.
GreyScout, launched in 2020, was set up by John Killian and Chris McCauley and has offices in both Dogpatch Labs in Dublin and TUS Midlands.
Last year proved a big one for GreyScout as it completed its seed funding round, raising €3.5 million, in a round jointly led by Act Venture Capital and Tribal, with Furthr VC, Enterprise Ireland and HBAN also participating.
This came on top of a pre-seed round of €1 million raised in 2022, which brings the total funds raised to date by the business to €4.5 million.
With the grey market (the unofficial market for counterfeit goods) valued at around €825 billion annually by the OECD, the opportunity for GreyScout is significant.
Ground Wellbeing was founded by Peigín Crowley in 2020 that develops wellness treatments and products.
The company was founded with the aim of helping to relieve people from anxiety, menopause, burnout, gut issues, as well as provide treatments for people going through cancer and chemotherapy.
Crowley worked as a consultant for 10 years, designing spas and products as well as training teams for various hotels. When lockdown happened, she turned her passion for helping people into a business.
The company’s range of balms and oils have been sold to hotel spas such as the K Club, the Shelbourne, Mount Juliet Estate, and the Europe Hotel & Resort as well as treatments such as hot and cold stones and holistic massage. Ground Wellbing’s products are also stocked in Brown Thomas.
The business is focused on growth in new markets now, with Japan in particular on its radar due to work done by Ground Wellbeing as part of the HPSU in Enterprise Ireland.
Harley & Marley is a Co Dublin-based pet food company that was founded in 2021 by Portia Quinn and Robin Thompson. What makes the Sandyford company stand out from the rest of the market is its use of fish rather than red meat in its food products for cats and dogs.
Harley & Marley products can be found in SuperValu stores across Ireland, with a partnership with Dunnes Stores in the works.
The business has forecast revenues of €600,000 by the end of the year, and €1.4 million by 2025. This is fuelled by interest in Eastern Europe in Irish fish products.
All of the fish used is sourced from Irish suppliers, with local hake, haddock and rainbow trout all finding their way into the company’s products.
Hiiker is a Dublin-based start-up that has developed a platform for hikers. The business has developed a mobile application that helps people to plan and navigate hikes and walks all over the world. Hiiker was founded in 2019 by Paul Finlay, Mark Finlay, Eoin Hamilton, and Pete Britton.
The majority of the company’s users are split between Ireland, the UK and the US, but the majority of revenue comes from Ireland. The goal for the business is to increase the number of users in markets outside of Ireland subscribing to its premium version.
This summer, Hiiker partnered with Coillte to offer an innovative way for local and visiting outdoor enthusiasts to experience a Coillte forest in Co Kildare. The service includes trail distances, accessibility reports and difficulty levels. Users also get real-time updates on how busy the trail is, parking availability, food options and toilet facilities.
Like so many of the companies on this list, the idea for HoloToyz was developed during lockdown. HoloToyz was founded by Kate Scott, Declan Fahy and Paul Cosgrave in 2020 and combines traditional toys with cutting-edge augmented reality technology.
Augmented reality technology uses computer-generated visual and auditory media that is overlaid on the physical world, which enhances the experience of toys or books for children.
HoloToyz produces a diverse product range, including children’s books, temporary tattoos, stickers and wall decals. Last year, the business raised
€1 million to aid its development and growth.
The company has distribution partnerships across Ireland, the UK, France, Greece, the Baltics, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong. It has also forged a sales partnership in the US.
Rebranding as Peri next year, identifyHer still gets into the I section of the Hot 100 based on its current name.
The business, founded by Heidi Davis and Donal O’Gorman in 2022, uses AI-enabled technology to personalise the management of menopausal symptoms. It can also help users to reduce the risk of disease in the future.
More than seven million women across the UK and Ireland are going through menopause at any one time with over half of them negatively impacted by the symptoms.
These symptoms can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. The tracker developed by identifyHer is designed to ensure users can regularly update how they are affected by their symptoms, providing physicians with a more accurate reading of their health when at scheduled visits.
Institute of Sustainability Studies expects to quadruple its student numbers this year as it aims to train the next generation of eco-conscious professionals in topics such as biodiversity, sustainable finance and decarbonisation.
The education business, which provides an online diploma in business sustainability, was founded by Justin Cullen and Niall Collins in 2022. Like Future Planet, an earlier entry on this list, the Institute of Sustainability is meeting a corporate need created by the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD).
The primary markets at present are Ireland and the UK but it is also targeting Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Belgium. Having processed 250 students in 2023, the company is expecting to break the 1,000 mark by the end of 2024 with further growth coming as the CSRD comes into effect for tens of thousands of businesses operating across the EU.
The International Trade Institute (ITI), an education and training business based in Lobinstown Co Meath, specialises in training on international trade. It was founded by Michael Boyd, Brendan McAuley and Fiona Luciani in 2021. It has seven full-time staff and 40 educators working on a contract basis. To date, ITI has raised €747,000.
The three co-founders developed the idea for ITI through their prior experience working as consultants. Each of them had noticed issues with skills around international trade and felt there was an unmet need they could address.
The business focuses on improving skills around trade policy, market selection and trade compliance. The International Trade Institute has partnered with Glasgow Caledonian University to provide accredited courses to its customers, which include AstraZeneca, Deloitte and Kerry Group.
Keeling Capital is a Dublin-based climate financing business that was founded by Béla Hanratty and Ross Madden in 2022. The company plans to deploy $75 million (€69.1 million) into early-stage and growth technologies by the end of 2024.
The name for the business comes from the Keeling curve, a method of measuring atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and the company’s goal is to reduce these levels. The total investment for this year will be spread across 10 to 15 fund managers who will invest in around 250 companies.
The business is deliberately using a broad spread of fund managers to improve diversification, which the founders believe will also increase the number of individual investments made as well.
Kerno, an IT business based in Buttevant, Co Cork, aims to raise $10 million (€9.2 million) next year as it targets expansion in the US. Kerno was founded by Sean Madigan, Karim Traiaia, Anibel Ambertin, Maxi Delo, and Vlad Romanov in 2022. The business has 11 staff and has raised €1.7 million in funding to date.
Kerno is building a tool that is designed to aid in the management of software applications across a business. At present, Kerno estimates that developers spend almost 70 per cent of their time seeking out where problems with software lie rather than addressing the issues directly.
The map-like tool developed by Kerno is designed to cut through all of the noise in the process to reduce the time wasted and, in turn, reduce costs for businesses.
Konree is a Co. Galway business that wants to make salmon healthier. The business was founded by Margaret Rae and Michael Flynn in 2021 and is developing an AI-based system that will be able to detect sea lice in a salmon pen and recommend the best termination method.
Rae was the director of the Irish Marine Institute from 2015 to 2020 and has recognised sea lice as one of the biggest issues in salmon production. Sea lice are small parasites, only 5-18 mm in size. They cling on to the host fish and feed from its tissue. This leads either to debilitation or death of the salmon.
In order to address this, Konree is developing a technology to identify and eliminate the lice early. Since the parasite stays on the outside of the fish, it is visible to a camera and the AI tools are being trained to understand when they see the lice.
Once detected, Konree’s solution can recommend a treatment to remove the lice. This can range from manually hosing down each fish, to using chemicals or relocating the fish into fresh water for a short time period.
Konvi, a Dublin-based business set up in 2020, is working to bring investment in luxury goods to a wide market. Customers can invest in a share of goods such as high-end bags and watches which can increase in value over time.
Founded by spouses Eran Peer and Ioana Surdu-Bob, the business has 10 staff and has raised €1.5 million to date. The idea for the business came when Surdu-Bob was watching videos about Hermes Birkin bags online. This led to a discussion between the couple about how such products gain value over time and can be investment assets.
The business intends to expand into the US, Middle East and East Asia in the near future as it seeks to widen its customer base. By the end of next year, the business aims to have at least 30 staff and be generating €20 million in revenue.
Kuul Play is an edtech company founded by Clare McSweeney in 2020. It now has offices in Cork and Sacramento, California.
KuulPlay has developed a platform aimed at helping kids to become more active, and is planning to launch its first funding round later this year as it seeks to grow its presence in the US market.
The platform provides a digital software solution that empowers children to lead healthy and active lifestyles. The idea for the business came after McSweeney started working with primary schools in Cork to help get children more active and involved in sport.
Kuul Play initially partnered with Sport Ireland and Athletics Ireland before setting up a presence in the US in 2022, where McSweeney had previously been a collegiate athlete.
Irish tech start-up Kwayga wants to conquer the British and European supermarket supply sector with its matching platform that connects buyers with suppliers.
The business was founded by Mike McGrath and Martin Fitzgerald in 2021 and its platform allows supermarket buying teams and suppliers to upload details of the products they either need or can supply, therefore reducing the time it takes to source products.
Since its establishment in 2021, the company has already garnered 100,000 registered suppliers and supermarkets as platform users.
While the UK expansion is the primary focus for 2024, supermarkets in Scandinavia and Malta are already using the system on a trial basis as Kwayga seeks to spread across the continent.
Legitify, a digital platform that allows for remote notarisation, is aiming to grow its customer base after launching a new iteration of its platform at the end of last year.
The business, based in Dublin, was founded by Aida Lutaj and Arko Ganguli in 2020. Lutaj noticed a gap in the market in Europe as notarisation, which is the verification of legal and financial transactions, began to move from an in-person process to an online one in other parts of the world.
Legitify has more than 1,100 clients which include start-ups, small and medium enterprises, larger businesses and individuals. While some come for one-off transactions, the business is trying to build consistent partnerships and has recently launched business plans.
Going forward, the company wants to tailor the product for specific sectors to ensure they have the best user experience. This includes financial services, legal services, transportation, maritime and healthcare.
Lia Eyecare, the Cork-based healthtech company, is aiming to create 50 jobs over the next five years as it prepares to launch its dry eye treatment in the next 36 months.
Lia has developed a technology to treat dry eye disease, a condition that affects 344 million people worldwide. The business, based in Réidh na nDoirí in west Cork, was started by Breda O’Regan and Sinéad Buckley in 2023.
The two co-founders are the only full-time staff members at present and the business expects to close a €1.5 million funding round before the end of this year. The company is aiming to gain clearance for market release by late next year, and launch the technology one year later.
Once CE certification is secured, which is expected at the end of 2025, Buckley said the business would seek further investment and grow further.
Little Red Edu is a platform for early learners that uses augmented reality and speech recognition software to help them learn to speak English.
The Dublin-based business was founded by Anna Carmody, who is originally from Tullamore, Co Offaly, in 2019.
The idea came to Carmody while she was teaching English in Vietnam, where one day she deviated from the regular lesson to using a game to teach students to learn the names of animals.
The gamified curriculum of Little Red Edu guides the early learner from their first lesson through to saying their first full sentence.
For her work with Little Red Edu, Carmody was named Future Leader of the Year at the CIO Awards in 2022.
LvLogics is a Meath-based hardware business that provides real-time level measurements for silos.
The business is based in Oldcastle and was founded in 2019 by husband and wife team Barry and Eileen Finnegan.
The company has developed a device that is placed on top of the silo which can monitor the levels within it, providing data to the user on their smartphone while also being used by suppliers to improve logistics efficiency for managing refills.
The business has a goal of servicing 10,000 silos across 40 countries by the end of 2026 but the potential is enormous.
According to the company’s data, there are 7.5 million silos in the world but only 0.3 per cent have monitoring. This presents substantial growth opportunities for the business.
Marker Video is the first example on this list of a business that pivoted. Founded by Greta Dunne, the business was originally called Marker Content with the goal of becoming the Shutterstock of articles for businesses.
The emergence of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT forced a substantial shift in direction from Dunne but it’s one she has embraced and thrived with.
The business has already attracted Unilever and Estée Lauder as clients to its platform which develops authentic user-generated videos for content-hungry brands.
Marker has developed a community of 100,000 creators keen to share their feelings about products they use. Individuals who submit videos can earn up to $100 per each 30-second review that is sold.
However, unlike influencers, Marker Video users aren’t provided with products from brands, or encouraged to be supportive when talking about them.
MCS Tech is a Cork-based medical software and solutions firm that was founded by Nick Condon Jr and Fiachra O’Driscoll in 2021. The business is harnessing years of medical know-how to catapult it into markets many times the size of the Irish medical sector after landing significant new contracts domestically.
The company is relatively young but draws its inspiration from MCSupport, a medical billing firm founded in 2015 by Nick Condon Sr.
MCS Tech, which posted revenues of €245,000 last year, sells in-house developed software and cloud-based solutions to private healthcare providers in Ireland that aims to improve their revenue cycle management.
Its software helps healthcare providers track pending and ongoing transactions across many layers of their business, which in several cases replaces the traditional paper-based model that many hospitals are still partially or fully dependent upon.
The company has grown to seven staff and aims to more than double the headcount to 15 within the next year, with revenue also expected to more than double to €650,000 this year.
Is it a fintech or is it a healthtech? In the case of MedoSync, the answer is both. The business was co-founded by Martin Rochford and Séamus Cooley in 2019 and has developed a paperless service for medical billing.
The goal of the business is to help hospitals prevent revenue leakage, with MedoSync estimating that up to 9 per cent of hospital revenue is lost annually due to poor billing processes.
The idea to start MedoSync grew out of Rochford’s own experience as an A&E consultant in Tallaght hospital. He found the process there archaic and felt that a more efficient option was surely possible.
MedoSync’s first customer was Laya Healthcare, working on its clinics, and it has added Affidea, Bon Secours, VHI and Irish Life as clients since.
Mesh is officially based in Sandyford in Co Dublin, but it is an unashamedly remote-first business that plans to grow entirely with that approach.
Founded in 2020 by Brian Byrne, Ralph Casey and Daimhin Kavanagh, Mesh is an email security solution that primarily helps managed services providers (MSPs).
Essentially, the email security options available to MSPs were difficult to scale, as most of these systems involved having one large client with one point of contact to enable all the updates. For MSPs, it’s that multiplied by 100 across a range of clients.
Mesh has reduced that complexity for clients through its platform, enabling a more scalable security solution for MSPs.
Message My Customer, a Dublin-based business, aims to have revenues of €1 million this year as it targets expansion into the US.
The business provides a payments solution called Payemoji through traditional messaging apps, such as WhatsApp or Messenger, to replace the need for separate apps or terminals.
The business was started in 2021 by Mick Higgins, Damien Stephens and John Daryl O’Regan. Message My Customer has 15 staff and has raised €4.1 million in funding to date.
Message My Customer has started selling into Ireland and the UK and is in the process of rolling out in the US as well.
MyGug, a greentech business, has ambitions to change the way we think about food waste and it all involves a colourful egg.
MyGug has developed a device used to convert bio-waste into energy. The business was founded by Fiona Kelleher and Kieran Coffey in 2021 and is based in Clonakilty, Co Cork.MyGug has four staff and has raised €900,000 to date.
The business opted for an egg design for the product as they wanted something that would stand out for users.
MyGug has been focused heavily on product development up to now. It has made sales both in Ireland and the UK. Since the start of this year, the business has become more focused on growth.
MyGug aims to develop partnerships over the next 12 to 18 months with companies seeking solutions around food waste. MyGug is aiming to increase its presence in the UK and expand into Germany as well during that period.
NanobOx is a Dublin-based business that creates equipment to add oxygen to water. The company, which was started in 2022 by Dr John Favier and Dr Mohammad Ghaani, is focused on the aquaculture and agriculture sectors.
Aquatic life, all the way down to microbes, breathes dissolved oxygen and it is vital for the uptake of nutrients. NanobOx’s technology has applications in waste water treatment and industrial fermentation as well.
The business uses nanobubbles, which, as the name suggests, operate at the nano scale. Nanobubbles are smaller than the pores of roots.
They are negatively charged, which attracts the fertiliser particles and carries both them and the oxygen.
The business is initially targeting fish and shrimp farms, with the former focused more on European clients and the latter on the US.
NoFrixion, a fintech company that is developing an embedded money transfer platform, has been on a scaling mission in 2024 after reaching important milestones in the closing months of 2023.
NoFrixion was founded by Feargal Brady and Aaron Clauson in August 2021. NoFrixion’s platform MoneyMoov was designed for companies to effectively manage funds from payments or bank accounts on one single platform. The service allows client companies to embed open banking, automate expense handling and management and use intelligent funds allocation.
Last year, NoFrixion was the first Irish fintech to gain both the Electric Money Institution (EMI) authorisation and the Virtual Asset Service Provider (Vasp) registration.
On top of that, NoFrixion also received the B-Corp certification in November, which verifies the social and environmental aspirations of a company.
Novus Diagnostics is a business that has developed a platform to help make diagnoses faster. Originally founded as Septec by Kellie Adamson and Elaine Spain in 2020, the business is based in Dublin City University.
The idea grew out of research by Adamson and Spain which focused on sepsis, and which used sensor-based technology. It was inspired by Spain’s grandfather, who had died from sepsis.
The technology detects rare cells in a complex biological background with extreme sensitivity. The platform can be adapted to treat multiple issues but sepsis is the primary focus in the company’s early years due to an urgent need for help in diagnosis and treatment.
Nualang is a Dublin-based edtech business founded by Greg Cawley and John McQuillan in 2020. It’s been quite the journey for the business, which has more than 20,000 users, following its partnership with and eventual acquisition by Wayside Publishing, the US language learning firm.
The business has developed an interface with chatbots, called Nualas, that can participate in open-ended conversations with students.
With backing from Enterprise Ireland, Nualang was able undertake an extensive research period, consulting with teachers across the US to find out what they wanted from tech-based language learning in the classroom.
Nualas can listen to a student as they speak into a recorder and conduct written role-play conversations, with their responses varying as they would in a real chat.
Nualang Live, the company’s newest feature, allows teachers to introduce interactive language games into the classroom.
The feature, which supports listening and translation exercises, integrates the Nuala chatbots into classroom games that provide students with live feedback.
Nunaïa, a skincare business, expects to close a €500,000 funding round before the end of the year. The business develops skincare products aimed at helping users reduce their stress as well as improve their skin.
Nunaïa, based in Terryglass, Co Tipperary, was founded by Nicola Connolly in 2019. The business has five staff and has invested €150,000 into its development to date.
The inspiration for the business came from Connolly’s many travels in the years prior to setting up Nunaïa, including over four years spent in the Galapagos Islands.
As she was working in these roles, Connolly appreciated the resourcefulness of the communities around her. This leaning into nature led to her starting Nunaïa when she returned to Ireland, focusing on natural materials at the core of the product range.
The business is now selling its products in Hong Kong and across Europe, with plans to move into the Middle East and other parts of Asia.
Nurture is an ed-tech business that works with schools, colleges and universities to help improve the experience in teaching and learning online.
The business, based in the Nexus Innovation Centre at the University of Limerick, was started by David Neville, Pádraic Hogan and Daniel Paul in 2021 as a spin-out of their prior company Jump A Grade. Whereas jumpAgrade was focused on providing easier access to grinds, Nurture is all about improving online learning.
In May, the business was selected by the Education Authority of Northern Ireland to introduce an AI teaching assistant to all of the 1,100 schools it governs.
Nurture has raised €1.3 million to date from business angels including Ray Downes and several other former senior executives at Kemp Technologies.
Among the other backers is Patrick Barry, who previously founded and exited VSware, Nostra Technologies’ co-founder and CEO Kevin O’Loughlin, and Barry Lunn, chief executive of Provizio.
Oatier, a Kildare-based food company that specialises in oat products, is expanding into new export markets across Europe as demand for dairy alternatives continues to grow.
The company, which was founded by Kieran Mahon, has already raised €1.4 million in investor capital over two separate funding rounds in 2023.
Since 2019, Oatier has been focused on oat drink products, spending four years on research before launching last year. Oat drink is an alternative to traditional milk and has grown rapidly in popularity over recent years, particularly in the food service industry where cafés and baristas have seen strong growth in consumer demand for the product.
Oatier is currently produced by a contract manufacturer in mainland Europe, which has the potential to increase production up to 20,000 litres per day as demand grows.
Otonomee, an outsourcing start-up, was founded by Aidan and Hilary O’Shea in 2021. Its staff work on a fully remote basis.
The business began essentially due to the Covid-19 pandemic, with its co-founders recognising an opportunity to run call centres remotely.
The business started off with an Irish client base but has expanded internationally as its own clients have increased their overseas operations. In March this year, the company secured a major contract with Oura, a Finnish health tech company that makes the Oura wearable smart ring.
As a result of the deal, Otonomee is creating 150 new jobs, of which at least two thirds will be on behalf of Oura.
This will more than double the staff at Otonomee, which had 120 staff prior to securing the Oura deal.
Payslip is a software business that helps businesses manage payrolls across multiple jurisdictions. The company was started by Fidelma McGuirk and has 83 staff and has raised €12.4 million in funding.
The idea for the business grew from McGuirk’s previous experience working in a tax business. She was running operations across 21 countries and recognised the complications that came with that. She set about developing a platform to address these complications.
Earlier this year, the company secured a partnership with Deloitte to provide payroll services.
The business expects its annual recurring revenue to reach €15 million by the end of 2025 following this deal and the growth of other partnerships.
Payslip’s services are being rolled out this year to the first 35,000 of what will be 500,000 employees over the course of the project. The business also partners with Workday.
Precision Sports Technology is a sports tech company set up in 2021 by Emma Meehan, a graduate of computer science from the University of Galway and an Olympic weightlifter. The company provides a software system that users pay for through a subscription.
It is currently working with physiotherapists and sports practitioners and is based in Galway out of the ATU innovation hub.
The company uses LiDAR technology (depth-sensing cameras built into the iPhone or iPad Pro-models) and AI to collect human movement data during exercise sessions, which is stored on the cloud for easy access by practitioners.
Last year, the company raised €100,000 through an accelerator programme in Austria called the Hummelnest Accelerator Programme, one out of 320 startups in Europe to be offered this investment.
Since then, Precision Sports Technology has received €700,000 in a pre-seed start funding round, including €250,000 from Enterprise Ireland. It is using these funds to expand into the US, where it is working with major sports clients across the American sports spectrum.
Positive Carbon, is a Dublin-based business that uses high-tech sensors to track, trace and eliminate food waste.
The business was founded by Aisling and Mark Kirwan in 2020 and raised €2.3 million in funding last year.
Positive Carbon’s platform provides reporting dashboards that allow kitchen staff, operation teams and management to review daily, weekly and monthly waste reports.
The technology is already in use in a number of businesses, including the Dalata Hotel Group and Radisson Blu.
On the back of last year’s funding round, the business is focused on expanding internationally with the primary targets being the EU and UK.
Prepsheets is a family business in the truest sense. The Dublin-based company was set up in 2021 by spouses Tara and Brian Beattie along with their son Richard.
The software company has developed a system to aid anyone who works in any business that sells food to quickly work out how much each ingredient in each dish costs them, along with identifying the allergen information.
The idea for the business grew out of a prior company, Mange Tout, set up by Tara and Brian Beattie in 1998. It operated a mix of dining establishments along with running corporate catering. Throughout their time running the company, the Beatties found they had trouble keeping track of costs.
The duo closed Mange Tout in December of last year to work alongside Richard Beattie on developing Prep Sheets.
The business has been supported by Enterprise Ireland since shortly after inception and it has been through the New Frontiers programme.
Proveye is a Dublin-based start-up that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to understand image data in the agriculture sector.
Proveye is based in NovaUCD and currently has six staff. It was founded by Jerome O’Connell and Nick Holden in 2022, and has raised funding of €1 million to date.
The technology is remarkable as it takes huge image datasets from drones and satellites. It then improves the quality and accuracy using artificial intelligence to eliminate the noise to find features in those images. These are then put through models to understand what is happening to crops, their habitat and what could happen. The business has global ambitions with expansion into Europe and North America the priority.
Pumpinheart is a medtech start-up based between Dublin and Galway. The business was founded by Dr Aamir Hameed, Dr Andrew Malone, Dr Darragh Colgan, and Donald Hickey in 2022. It has raised €100,000 in pre-seed funding to date.
Pumpinheart is developing a device aimed at addressing diastolic heart failure. As the name suggests, it will operate as a pump for the heart to allow patients with heart conditions to reduce time spent in hospitals.
The finished product will be roughly the size of a AAA battery, the type you’d put in your TV remote control, and will be inserted into the left aorta.
To date, the business has done testing as far as in animals with a larger scaled version of the device. Human trials are expected to start in 2025.
Prodensus is a logistics technology business based in Killarney, Co. Kerry and was founded by Frankie Bates and Noel McGlynn in 2020.
The business has developed the only AI-data enhancing solution for freight and has a dynamic procurement platform that allows customers to run continuous bids, requests for quotes and mini bids.
Speed of delivery is a key aspect of the offering from Prodensus. In just five minutes, it can clean, validate, map and integrate a client’s shipment data, ensuring accuracy and enhancing data quality.
Crucially, it can also quickly aid users in spotting mistakes made in the manual process by identifying outlier, erroneous and misleading variables within the client’s data.
Quantmatix, a Dublin-based fintech, has already enjoyed a strong 2024, having closed a €2.1 million funding round in March.
The business, which was founded by Liam Boggan and Paul Chew in 2021, currently has eight staff, and had previously raised €1.2 million in funding.
Quantmatix has developed a financial market strategy and timing tool designed to help its customers improve their investment decisions.
Boggan and Chew worked with each other extensively prior to starting Quantmatix, most recently with ABN Amro. It was from this experience that they decided to start the business.
The business is selling its core product to large scale asset managers but is also working on a simplified version of its product for casual traders.
Reap Interactive is a Co Roscommon-based agtech business that was founded by Kieran Supple in 2021.
The company’s primary product, BovinePlus, enables farmers to make better decisions by using artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to monitor the ongoing health and behaviour patterns of their animals.
BovinePlus calculates the weight data from an animal’s two front legs when it steps onto a platform to access the water trough.
It then uses algorithms to provide an accurate estimation of the full body weight, which along with the water intake allows for predictions of an individual animal’s performance and potential health issues.
The product has enormous potential for improving farm efficiency and Supple has plans for expansion across Europe and the US to help farmers work smarter.
ReBot, also known as RenewableBot, was founded by Prasad Gade with the aim of improving efficiency in maintaining offshore wind farms. The system is designed to improve the accuracy of monitoring and servicing systems as well as making them more cost effective.
The business uses machine learning and AI to tell windfarm owners when something is going to go wrong and address it before it becomes a major problem.
The Rebot system is designed to reduce overall expenses for companies by 5 per cent and drop the labour time by 20 to 30 per cent.
Through €100,000 in pre-seed funding from Enterprise Ireland and €30,000 from a private investor, Gade has developed pilots that are being used by major providers such as Statkraft and Mainstream Renewable Power.
While focused on Ireland for now, Gade hopes to expand into the rest of Europe and the US next year.
RedSky Europe was founded by Ken Byrne in 2019, initially as a localised fulfilment centre for e-commerce businesses to store and dispatch inventory across Europe.
Ger Egan, a former finance director for GSK Pharmaceuticals, joined Byrne as a co-founder shortly after RedSky was set up and the duo have developed a fascinating operation since then.
The Kilkenny business has expanded substantially since then, having developed a Vat services platform for clients to manage the tax on online sales in Europe.
In a short number of years, the company has gained major global brands and some of the largest partners in the fulfilment space worldwide.
Having had just 40 staff in 2022, the business expects to have over 90 employees by the end of this year.
Relevium Medical is a Galway-based medtech firm that was founded by Alison Liddy in 2019.
The business has developed an injection-based form of pain treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee. The Galway medtech firm has 10 staff and has raised €3.4 million in funding to date.
The two main treatments for knee osteoarthritis at present are steroids and hyaluronic acid, both of which have drawbacks for the patient.
Relevium’s treatment is injected into the joint and targets specific pain-sensing molecules. It is designed to give patients six months of pain relief with each injection.
Relevium plans to start raising its Series A round at the end of this year, with a target of approximately €10 million.
The second acquisition on this list, ResHub was bought by UK-based Person Centred Software (PCS), which is part of private equity-backed Connected Care Group.
ResHub is a software platform used to help with senior living, whether that’s at home, in assisted living or in a nursing home. The business was started in 2020 by Sean McLoughlin and Neil Hosey. All of its staff work on a remote basis. The business had raised €1.8 million in funding prior to its sale earlier this year.
The ResHub platform connects the resident with staff, family and services. There are parts to the application for everyone involved based on peer-reviewed academic research into optimal ageing and house design technology.
RugbySmarts is an Irish tech start-up that offers AI-based video analytics. Despite the name, it’s got more than the oval ball on its mind.
The business is based in Oranmore, Co Galway, and was founded by William Johnstone and Yvonne Comer in 2020.
RugbySmarts has developed an AI platform that recognises movement patterns and can be used to prove the quality of amateur players to scouts or coaches from higher level rugby.
It has partnered with Move ’N See, a French company that develops automated cameras to keep a ball in focus during play. The RugbySmarts AI can add to this by providing enormous amounts of player data based on automated visual observation.
The platform has been supported by the IRFU but there are opportunities beyond rugby. The business has already worked with the GAA on applying the technology to Gaelic games and it plans to move into North America to work with sports that are more popular there.
SeamlessCARE is a Dublin-based start-up founded by Aviva Cohen, Ian Kennedy and Dr Çağrı Çubukçu in 2021. The company is on a mission to improve communication skills for non-verbal people around the world.
SeamlessCARE has developed software that can read emotions from expressions to help non-verbal people be better understood.
The inspiration for seamlessCARE was Cohen’s own experience helping her late husband Steve after he had a stroke. With her husband non-verbal, Cohen had first-hand experience of his frustration at not being able to communicate as he wished. She then sought to find a way to help others.
The company’s first product, Empathic, supports people that have fewer than 20 words they are capable of saying. It records a few seconds of vocalisation, which is analysed by AI and tells carers the emotion the person is trying to express.
Cohen has big plans for seamlessCARE with the company developing its own AI. The Empathic app learns over time, so the company plans to develop it substantially to become more of a communications tool.
Second Life Battery Services (SLBS) is a Dublin-based business founded by John Byrne in 2022. As the name suggests, it wants to give batteries a second life.
SLBS aims to transform how we see batteries by reusing their cells to power our buildings, cars and home appliances.
The technology developed by Byrne determines whether the cells in an exhausted lithium battery can be reused, and if so, whether they can be repurposed into a new battery. This repurposing of cells instead of purchasing them anew substantially reduces their environmental impact.
The firm’s first client is Cork-based data centre business CloudCIX. SLBS is scaling up its system to create a product with enough power to fuel five houses for five days.
That project is expected to be completed in October and, should it prove successful, the data centre market is one SLBS intends to target substantially.
Senoptica was founded in 2018 by Steve Comby, Rachel Evans and Brendan Rice as a spin-out from Trinity College Dublin.
The business helps global retailers reduce food waste using oxygen-sensing technology that can be printed into food packaging.
The business is young but the idea is over 20 years old, with Evans having first thought about technology of this kind while researching her PhD.
The high regulatory requirements around food safety coupled with the unique nature of Senoptica’s technology have made it a necessarily long road to market for the business.
The sensors change the colour of the ink on packaging to indicate the different gas mixes inside. This is far more detailed than simply saying if food is good or bad as it tells the user if the right amount of oxygen is inside the package.
The business has plans in place to scale rapidly with Ireland and Britain being used as the markets to prove the viability of the product before entering other markets.
Meet a company on a mission to make-over the meat aisle. The Seriously Sound Food Co was started by Shane O’Connor and Richard Sharp in Tralee, Co Kerry, in 2022 and is already attracting lots of attention.
The business sells plant-based chicken pieces in both plain and Carolina BBQ flavours. Seriously Sound’s products are already stocked by Dunnes Stores, Tesco and SuperValu.
Remarkably, despite being a food business, neither O’Connor nor Sharp had any experience in the sector prior to starting Seriously Sound.
Fortunately, they had access to some experts in the field nearby as Tralee is home of the Kerry Group and that helped them get the knowhow required to succeed.
The business has substantial expansion plans, including expanding sales into Europe and also providing options for the food service market including hotels and restaurants.
There are good ways to start the year and then there are great ways to start the year. Shock of Grey most definitely enjoyed the latter in 2024 as it won International Buyers’ Choice award at Showcase 2024, Ireland’s premier design and craft fair.
Shock of Grey was founded by Sarah Carroll Kenny in 2020 and develops eco-friendly jewellery from materials such s wood and brass. The business is currently generating the bulk of its revenue, around 85 per cent, from Ireland, but growth plans are afoot.
Shock of Grey plans to grow to 10 staff by the end of this year, having started with just four, as it plans to move into the US and European markets while making major inroads in the UK, where it already has a small presence.
Sisterly is a Dublin-based health supplement business which was founded by Aoife Matthews, Jennifer O’Connell and Louise O’Riordan in 2020. Earlier this year it closed a €2 million funding round, having previously raised €500,000.
Sisterly is developing a range of supplements tailored specifically for women. The idea for the company came when the trio each found that there were no supplements on the market that catered specifically to their needs.
The first product, the Elevator, launched last year and sales have proven to be impressive. The business has recorded a 78 per cent retention rate with online sales while performance has also been strong at retail partners Brown Thomas and Meagher’s pharmacies.
The business has expansion goals, targeting the UK and US, and held its first wellness conference earlier this year.
Sizewise is an AI start-up based in NovaUCD in Co Dublin that was founded by Alan Power in 2022.
SizeWise uses AI and deep learning to transform online footwear retail. Put simply, SizeWise is a digital version of a traditional foot gauge for footwear retail. With SizeWise, customers can size their feet from home using any mobile device.
With great variation from brand to brand, the system matches the foot profile to the ideal footwear in the retailer’s collection. SizeWise easily integrates with the retail or brand website for a seamless customer journey.
Power developed the idea from personal experience, as he was regularly frustrated by the variations in sizes across brands when buying footwear for his children. In addition to helping find the right fit, the app also sends personalised reminders to parents when it’s time to check if their child needs a bigger shoe. The company has developed a partnership with Start-Rite Shoes to help reach a wider market.
Skippio, a Dublin start-up, wants to help you get a pint faster. The business was founded by Daniel Coen in 2022 and has six staff. Originally based at the IADT MediaCube in Kill O’The Grange in south Dublin, it is now headquartered in NovaUCD and to date, has raised €540,000 in funding.
Skippio has developed a platform that allows users at events such sports matches, concerts or festivals to order food and drinks ahead of time, effectively skipping the long queues.
The business started out in March 2022 and was operational by December of that year. It’s first trial was at Fairyhouse Racecourse and it has continued to attract more interest since.
The business has bullish growth prospects, and Coen is keen to find other ways to develop the product to provide more services for consumers and clients. Skippio aims to land its first trial in the UK later this year.
Monaghan firm SomaTech wants to revolutionise nutrition through fermentation. Founded by Tony Callaghan and Alejandra Omarini in 2023, SomaTech takes side streams, which are food-grade goods created as a by-product of other processes, and uses them to create protein-rich ingredients.
Both of the co-founders are biochemists and SomaTech has targeted a raise of €750,000 in its first funding round. This will allow the business to scale up its technology, with the construction of a one-tonne fermentation machine, which is due to be completed in the first half of 2025. The machine takes by-product ingredients and enhances them using a process known as solid-state fermentation, which makes them more nutritionally dense and easily digestible. In addition to being supported by Enterprise Ireland, SomaTech completed Bórd na Móna’s Accelerate Green programme earlier this year.
It’s been quite the year for Spiorad Medical with the Dublin-based business being accepted onto MedTech Innovator (MTI), the world’s largest life sciences accelerator, in Los Angeles.
The medical device company was founded by Judi O’Malley, a medical device expert who spent 11 years as a vascular physiologist with the HSE, and Dr Samer Arnous, a cardiologist with particular expertise in complex coronary and structural heart interventions.
The business has developed a device designed to improve outcomes for patients who have catheters inserted into their femoral artery to assess or treat cardiac problems.
Spiorad’s device is extravascular, meaning it leaves nothing behind in a patient’s artery after surgery.
The placement on MTI, which saw Spiorad named as one of just 65 on the accelerator out of 1,300 applicants, provided the business with substantial exposure to the US market.
Spotlight Skills is an education-focused start-up that was founded by Emer O’Dwyer in 2020. The Kilkenny-based company was initially focused on providing a programme for transition year students but, from research with schools, O’Dwyer changed to focusing on a system that would help ease pain points for schools.
This led to the launch of NameDown, a cloud-based admissions software platform designed to help schools manage applications, offers and waiting lists. Schools can create their own portal on which to receive applications and documentation from parents of prospective pupils, minimising the back-and-forth and communication mix-ups that are increasingly frustrating for schools and parents.
With multiple oversubscribed schools in a given area, parents inevitably apply to several schools. With NameDown, that becomes less of an issue as all schools using the software can see if another school has accepted an applicant. This reduces the risk of duplication and ensures more spaces stay open for more pupils.
StoreHero, a Dublin-based technology business, aims to add 16 staff over the next 18 months as it continues its expansion into the US.
StoreHero was founded by Karl O’Brien and Thomas Gleeson in 2023. It has nine staff and has raised €700,000 in funding. The company provides e-commerce businesses with real time insights on revenue and costs using an artificial intelligence platform.
The StoreHero platform unifies data from sales, marketing and other costs to provide an accurate picture of where a business stands. In turn, it can provide insights into what is and isn’t working for the client.
The company’s plan is to be an AI-driven growth advisor for e-commerce. In a practical way, it should be like having a 24/7 e-commerce advisor tailored to the client’s business.
Tailr is an Irish fashion software company that was founded by Shana Chu in 2021. The business has created technology that helps brands produce clothing that is consistent in size.
Chu worked as a garment technologist for more than a decade, producing fire suits and arc protective wear. She designed the detailed blueprints to produce the garments, and it is this experience that inspired her to create Tailr.
The company’s goal is to change the fashion industry with its unprecedented approach to fabric sizing. It got a big boost in that regard last year as it completed its first funding round. The €700,000 raise was led by Delta Partners, with others taking part in the round including UK Haatch, Enterprise Ireland and angel investors.
Tantek4D is a Sligo-based business specialising in 3D laser scanning, digital twin development and other services.
The business, which also has a presence in Dublin, was founded by brothers Conor and Paul Tansey and is in the process of adding 30 new staff, which will bring the total headcount to around 50.
Tantek4D produces 3D scans of buildings and develops models to ensure all the information required by the client is readily accessible.
That, of course, only accounts for the three dimensions of height, breadth and depth. The fourth dimension in Tantek4D is time, with clients able to see how a building will change over time through the model.
Tantek has substantial expansion plans, with the new hires playing key roles in aiding its growth into international markets including Belgium, Spain and Germany.
Taly Subscriptions is a Castleknock, Co Dublin-based business founded by sisters Kerri and Alex Sheeran.
The company was founded in 2021, and provides a way for people to keep track of their subscriptions in one place. It essentially works as a marketplace that aggregates and manages consumer subscriptions. Taly allows you to browse, purchase and manage all of your lifestyle subscriptions in the one place.
The main services which Taly addresses are food, beverages, health and beauty. The primary target markets for growth, beyond Ireland, are the UK and US where the business believes there will be significant demand for such a service.
Thanks Plants is a food business started by Aisling Cullen in 2020 which, as the name suggests, is focused on plant-based ingredients for all of its products.
The Dublin-based company’s products are in 300 stores across Ireland including Aldi, Tesco and SuperValu outlets, having been through the latter’s food academy.
The business has been through the New Frontiers programme in Enterprise Ireland as well as the Food Works programme with the agency.
Thanks Plans has expanded into Northern Ireland, through Indie Fude and Millbank Farm, and intends to widen its reach in the UK.
Tonstix, formerly known as Soothing Solutions, will be a familiar brand name to anyone who has gone to a pharmacy in recent months. The business manufactures a range of honey jelly pops aimed at providing a children’s alternative to lozenges.
The business, based in Dundalk, Co Louth, was developed by Sinéad Crowther after spending 25 years working as a pharmacy technician. She partnered with co-founder Denise Lauaki, who brought the business experience Crowther needed to pair with her knowledge of the pharmacy sector.
Tonstix has been supported by Enterprise Ireland since its early days and the concept is brilliantly simple. The product is formulated to melt in a child’s mouth and ease sore throats while removing choke hazards.
This way parents get peace of mind while their children’s throats aren’t quite so sore.
TrojanTrack is an equine tech business based at the National Stud in Co Kildare. The company was founded by Stephen O’Dwyer in 2021 and uses video data to examine the risk of injury to horses.
Video data is gathered of a horse walking. From that, TrojanTrack’s platform extracts from 52 points on that horse using deep neural network technology. Using that data, TrojanTrack can do biomechanical analysis, giving objective measurements of a horse’s gait pattern and flagging any potential problems the horse may have.
O’Dwyer was always a fan of horse racing, and the idea grew out of that. Having studied biomedical engineering in UCD, he recognised a way he could use his skills in the sport.
The business has been supported by Enterprise Ireland since its early days and it added to its successes last year by being one of eight companies named to the AgTech UCD Accelerator programme.
Tyro is a Dublin-based educational technology firm co-founded by Niall O’Reilly and Patrick Barry. It’s not Barry’s first rodeo in edtech, having previously been a founder of VSware.
Tyro has developed a platform for parents and schools to use together to make administrative matters on both sides easier. Parents can use it to flag everyday hiccups like last-minute sickness, immediately registering their child’s absence for the day on individual teacher’s roll-call sheets.
Teachers, in turn, can send parents push notifications about anything from school trip fee reminders to permission slips and academic reports, without an envelope being lost to the bottom of an intermediary’s schoolbag.
The Tyro technology will reach 100 schools by the end of the year with an opportunity for state tenders becoming available next year.
Unbanx, an Irish fintech, is working to provide consumers with ways to get paid for the data they provide when making purchases.
Unbanx was founded in 2021 by cousins Alan and Gerard McDonald. It currently has five staff and has raised €1.3 million in funding. The business operates fully remotely.
The value of individual data has long been recognised but enabling individuals to realise that value has been the challenge. Unbanx offers a way to do that as consumers to create a profile in a mobile app and send their spending data to the platform. The platform combines and aggregates that data, then works to create value from it in various ways and revenue share with those consumers.
The key selling point for Unbanx is that despite the data itself having value, the business keeps it anonymous so individual user’s privacy is protected.
The business has substantial growth plans over the next 18 months, with aims to hire seven more staff to its existing team of five and rapidly add consumers to the platform in the UK.
Vaultree is a Cork city-based tech business founded by Ryan Lasmaili and Tilo Weigandt.
The business, which has raised €14.9 million to date, is an encryption security business that is designed to ensure that even when data gets leaked, it’s of no use to the malicious actor.
The idea grew from all of the founders having different experiences with having their data stolen.
The Vaultree approach is designed to put gibberish at the heart of the solution. To get the data a question is asked in gibberish, the right gibberish answer must then be provided, the data is then provided as gibberish, and then it must be decrypted.
The business continues to refine its product offering and is supported by Enterprise Ireland, where it is part of the HPSU.
Vesta Insights, an artificial intelligence (AI) business, aims to raise €5 million in its seed round. The funding round is expected to be completed later this year.
The business has developed a platform using AI and machine learning to provide more accurate credit assessments.
Vesta Insights was founded by Veronica Breene in 2023 and is headquartered in Ennis, Co Clare. The business has eight staff and has raised €300,000 to date.
Vesta was born out of Breene’s PhD research where she was training the AI on data from Freddie Mac, a large housing authority in the US. From there she was able to develop a model and the efficacy of Breene’s model led to interest from investors early but she opted to be patient and start the business last May.
Vesta Insights has received support from Gina Raimondo, the US secretary of commerce, who has selected the business as one of 40 to help in developing AI projects in finance.
W4 Games was founded by Nicola Farronato, Juan Linietsky, Fabio Alessandrelli and Rémi Verschelde in 2022 and offers professional services for game development or software-as-a-service game development based on the open-source game engine Godot.
Game engines form the basic architecture for video games and determine the functionality and graphics of a video game title. The market is currently dominated by large players, limiting options for developers.
By using an open source model as its base, W4’s goal is to offer enterprise level solutions that can help ease the bottlenecks in the development process.
The business has big goals, aiming to grow its revenue tenfold from last year’s €500,000 by the end of 2025.
We Are Riley, a Cork-based business, is aiming to expand into the US over the next two years following successful growth across Ireland and Europe.
The business provides period products that are developed in a manner designed to be more sustainable than existing alternatives.
We Are Riley was founded by Áine Kilkenny, Lauren Duggan and Fiona Parfrey in 2021. It has offices in both Cork city and London. The business has 12 staff and has raised €2 million to date.
The company’s corporate clients include Accenture, KPMG, Deloitte and Kerry Group, all of which have partnered with We Are Riley in line with their sustainability initiatives
The next step for the business is a move across the Atlantic, with the goal to launch in the US in either 2025 or 2026.
Welliba, a start-up that specialises in HR software applications, expects to more than double its revenues this year to around €2 million after securing partnerships with a host of international clients.
Headquartered in Loughrea, Co Galway, Welliba was founded in 2022 by David Barrett, Achim Preuss, Andreas Lohff and Joe Barrett. The business currently has 56 staff and recorded revenues of €750,000 last year.
Welliba has developed a software platform that measures employee engagement and identifies what factors drive performance. The data generated by the company’s software platform is then used to suggest actions for employers, which could help improve employee engagement and raise performance.
The business now has 40 clients operating in more than 75 countries, having grown rapidly since starting out two years ago. Welliba’s clients include Accenture, Louis Vuitton and Cushman & Wakefield among others.
Whole Supp is a Dublin-based nutritional supplements firm that was founded by Darren O’Reilly, a former professional rugby player with Leinster, and Dr Brian Carson in 2022. It has eight staff and has raised funding of €600,000 to date.
The business has developed a shake that is high in protein and nutritionally complete. It provides over 30 vitamins and minerals along with protein, fats and carbohydrates in one supplement.
The early adopters of the product were athletes, but the business has grown to having over 10,000 customers in total.
Whole Supp has, up to now, been an entirely direct-to-consumer business but is now branching out to work with retailers with goals to reach more customers through that route by the end of the year.
Wiistream, a Cork-based start-up that provides streaming solutions to the sports and entertainment industry, is targeting annual revenues of more than €10 million over the coming years after signing a number of breakthrough deals with US sporting organisations in the last year.
Co-founded in January 2020 by Patrick Magee, Fionn Herlihy and Mike Price, Wiistream started out life as Páirc TV, initially providing live stream services to Down GAA and Carlow GAA during the pandemic when fans were unable to attend club matches.
The start-up company has since pivoted to provide over the top (OTT) streaming services to sporting organisations in multiple different sports and countries, including soccer, handball, ice hockey, and more.
The early pivot certainly paid off, as Wiistream landed new contracts with British Ice Skating and the World Baseball Softball Confederation, as well as a number of smaller football clubs in Britain. By the end of its third year, revenues had reached a very impressive €800,000.
The firm is set to deliver projected turnover of more than €2 million for this year, and hopes to increase that figure fivefold over the coming years to hit €10 million once the business begins to scale rapidly.
WindCapture Technologies, an Irish company that specialises in carbon capture, is planning to launch a new fundraising round later this year as it seeks to conduct a large-scale pilot project for its technology.
Co-founded in 2022 by Aaron Boylan and Ronan Hearne, WindCapture Technologies is developing a proprietary wind turbine blade that harvests carbon directly from the air filtered by a wind farm. The captured C02 can then be mineralised, allowing the carbon to be permanently stored or sequestered underground.
Once it has perfected its technology, WindCapture Technologies plans to target older wind farms as a route to market. Boylan said many of the older wind farm systems using 20 metre turbine blades are now coming to the end of their lives and are ready to be retrofitted with new technology.
The business plans to use any new funding to continue its technology development, and to bring three new staff into the business.
In an alphabetical list, or any really, there has to be a final entrant but WHYZE really is one worth waiting for.
WHYZE Health digitises the recruitment process of patients for clinical trials. Based in Blackrock, Co Dublin, the company was founded by Frances Abeton and Frank Sullivan in 2021.
The interest in developing the business came from Abeton’s experience helping her daughter deal with medical issues. Her own connections with the research world helped her find better treatment for her daughter, and she decided there had to be a way to open this up for more people.
WHYZE has partnered with Elligo Health Research, a US-based medical research business, to help broaden its reach. The target customers for Whyze are hospitals and other medical service providers.
This article was originally published on Business Post.
