Ireland, the Emerald Isle, is one of the world’s most scenic countries, and, luckily, for us at MFS, a place we call home. In terms of entrepreneurial spirit, Ireland is not to be found wanting. We have a thriving startup scene with varying levels of grants and supports available to kickstart new business dreams.
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Turning a startup from a vision into a sustainable, successful reality is no mean feat. However, such is the strength of the current Irish startup scene, that we have been able to identify startups that look destined for big things. Over the past decade, we have seen companies like CitySwift, ID-Pal, and Flipdish lead the way - with Flipdish even reaching unicorn status in 2022.
While these companies have shown the way, getting there, for today’s startups remains a major challenge. Challenges however are there to be overcome, and, in today’s post, we have chosen 10 Irish startups we feel won’t be stopped on their march to success.
Assiduous
Key Details:
- Website: assiduous.tech
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Fergal Meegan, CEO and co-founder and Barry Murphy, COO and co-founder
- Industry: FinTech, SaaS, Corporate Finance, AI
- Overview: Assiduous has developed an AI-enabled platform called the "Corporate Finance Autopilot." This platform provides businesses with a virtual advisory service that helps them prepare for and manage strategic financial events, such as raising capital, IPO readiness, succession planning, and business exits. The platform combines proprietary corporate finance processes with AI to streamline tasks and provide proactive, continuous advice. It helps business owners assess their financial position, plan their strategic journey, and manage the execution of key corporate actions, ultimately making it easier for them to build valuable businesses and achieve their financial goals.
- MFS Analysis: Co-founders Fergal Meegan and Barry Murphy look well-placed to address a growing need around access to capital markets. Beginning 2025 with a bang, Assiduous secured an oversubscribed €1 million funding round to build out the platform's AI capabilities. With a leadership team steeped in industry knowledge from their time at Davey Corporate Finance, the signs are pointing to an exciting future for the company.
Bergo
Key Details:
- Website: bergo.ie
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Cathal D'Arcy, founder
- Industry: PropTech, Cleantech, SaaS, Construction
- Overview: BERGO's software platform is designed to replace the manual and time-consuming process of conducting BER assessments. The platform allows assessors to create digital floor plans on-site, automate calculations, and generate comprehensive reports. This significantly reduces administrative work, improves data accuracy, and helps assessors manage their jobs more effectively. BERGO's tools are built to align with the requirements of Ireland's Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and are designed to be used offline, a crucial feature for fieldwork.
- MFS Analysis: At a time when climate targets need to be met, BERGO and their youthful CEO Cathal D'Arcy look to be ideally positioned to drive the digital transformation of the energy assessment industry. While it is still early days, there are a number of key factors working in the company's favour specifically their CEO's industry knowledge and background as a BER assessor, the overly manual processes involved in BER data collection, and external factors around climate targets which will help to drive demand for BERGO's software.
Inspeq AI
Key Details:
- Website: inspeq.ai
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: Apoorva Kumar; Co-Founder & CTO: Ramanujam Macharla Vijayakumar
- Industry: AI Governance, Saas, Artificial Intelligence, FinTech
- Overview: Inspeq AI's platform is an "AI ops layer" that provides a suite of tools for the entire AI development lifecycle. It offers features for pre-production testing, real-time monitoring, and governance of AI applications. The platform helps developers and enterprises ensure their AI systems are reliable, compliant with regulations like the EU AI Act, and free from issues such as "hallucinations" and security vulnerabilities. By providing these guardrails, Inspeq AI allows companies to deploy AI solutions confidently and at scale, reducing development costs and risks. The company has a global presence with offices in Dublin, London, and Bengaluru.
- MFS Analysis: Inspeq AI has made it their mission to lead the responsible AI revolution, which - when you consider the rapid pace of AI adoption - is no bad thing. With a leadership team that can count on experience and skills honed at companies like Microsoft, SAP, AWS, and Meta, the company looks to be ideally positioned to bring the necessary guardrails to enterprise AI tools. Indeed, the founders have cleverly positioned the company in the new category of its own creation of Responsible AI Ops. Having been identified as one of Wired's Top 100 Startups and recently secured additional funding, we are anticipating rapid growth for this company over the next few years.
Jentic
Key Details:
- Website: jentic.com
- Year Founded: 2024
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: Sean Blanchfield; Co-Founder & COO: Dorothy Creaven; Co-Founder & CTO: Michael Cordner; Co-Founder: Dr. Tilman Schaefer
- Industry: AI, Saas, Middleware
- Overview: Jentic is building the critical infrastructure needed for the "agentic revolution." As AI agents—software programs that can autonomously complete tasks by interacting with other systems—become more common, they require a new type of middleware to operate securely and reliably. Jentic's platform provides a centralized communication hub and a managed execution environment that allows developers to connect their AI agents to thousands of APIs without exposing sensitive credentials. The platform also offers features for monitoring, security, and governance, which are crucial for businesses looking to deploy AI at scale.
- MFS Analysis: Bolstered with €4 million in funding and an all-star founding team, Jentic are focused on building the critical infrastructure needed to keep up with the pace of AI system development. The goal - to develop and establish a universal AI integration layer - is ambitious but attainable - especially when you consider the wealth of expertise at both management and board level. In terms of positioning, Jentic will appeal to both developers looking to streamline API integration and business leadership seeking to maintain an oversight of agent operations within the company.
Kota
Key Details:
- Website: kota.io
- Year Founded: 2022
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: Luke Mackey; Co-Founder & CTO: Patrick O'Boyle; Co-Founder & Director of Engineering: Deepak Baliga
- Industry: FinTech, HR Tech, Insurtech, SaaS
- Overview: Kota has built a platform that acts as a single, all-in-one hub for a company's benefits. It connects directly with leading insurance and pension providers, allowing employers to easily set up, manage, and scale benefits for their teams. This removes the need for fragmented processes involving spreadsheets, emails, and multiple brokers. The platform provides a user-friendly app for employees, giving them a clear view of their benefits and the ability to manage their contributions in real time. Kota's solution is designed to be scalable and has secured a license from the Central Bank of Ireland, positioning it as a regulated and trusted platform for businesses of all sizes, from small teams to large enterprises.
- MFS Analysis: Backed to the tune of €20 million, including a recent €12.8 million Series A funding round, Kota are entering into the rapid growth phase of their journey. Helmed by seasoned and proven operators, the company looks nicely poised to realize their ambitious goal to build the world's employee benefits infrastructure. Director of Engineering, Deepak Baliga comes to this role hot off the heels of a leadership role at unicorn Flipdish and this experience could prove invaluable as Kota scales over the next few years. Kota are targeting an area that is essentially broken. Employee benefits management has previously been managed through a combination of email, attachments, and ad hoc communication between HR and insurance companies. Consolidating this disparate situation into a centralized platform is no mean feat, but Kota have managed to do so as well as developing key integrations with insurance providers around the globe. The challenge for the company now is to scale and execute on their goals - but they have put themselves in a position where they are well set up to do so.
MarketSizer
Key Details:
- Website: marketsizer.io
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Founder & CEO: Niall O'Gorman
- Industry: Sales Intelligence, Market Intelligence, SaaS
- Overview: MarketSizer's core product is a platform that turns "messy market signals" into "evidence-based signals." Instead of relying on traditional, often-delayed data, MarketSizer's technology tracks real-time competitive trials, tech stack changes, and renewal events. This provides sales teams with a "timing advantage," helping them identify high-probability targets and reach out at the most opportune moment.
- MFS Analysis: With €1 million in pre-seed funding, MarketSizer are off to a good start. MarketSizer's pivot from market-sizing to sales intelligence was key - setting the company up for a tilt at a market slated to surpass $9.2bn by 2032. MarketSizer also look to have nailed their initial positioning by focusing on SaaS companies where rapid growth is the name of the game. Indeed, key insights from the MarketSizer platform have the potential to make or break early stage companies who need to find the right customer at the right time. CEO Niall O'Gorman can call on 25 years of tech experience as he navigates the challenges that come with launching and scaling a startup. He is bullish about the company's future and - with impressive foundations in place - it is not hard to see why.
Numra
Key Details:
- Website: numrahq.com
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: David Kearney; Co-Founder: Conor Digan
- Industry: FinTech, AI, Accounting, SaaS
- Overview: Numra is a Dublin-based FinTech company that is developing an AI-powered platform for finance and accounting teams. The company's goal is to automate repetitive, manual tasks, allowing finance professionals to focus on higher-value, strategic work.
- MFS Analysis: Geared towards companies with large in-house finance teams, Numra are well positioned to feature prominently in the digital, AI-powered transformation of the finance function. CEO and co-founder David Kearney possesses the right combination of skills to oversee the charge - a qualified chartered accountant, David knows first-hand the type of manual processes weighing down finance teams the world over. In an area where legacy systems and processes still persist, Numra's AI assistant Mary - which aims to increase team productivity by up to 50% - is exactly the type of solution finance teams are crying out for.
Octostar
Key Details:
- Website: octostar.com
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: Giovanni Tummarello; Co-Founder: Simone Scarduzio; Co-Founder: Robert Fuller; Co-Founder: Varun Sharma
- Industry: Investigative Intelligence, Enterprise SaaS, AI, Security
- Overview: Octostar is a Galway-based startup that provides an investigative and decision intelligence platform. The company's software helps investigators, law enforcement, and security professionals collect, analyze, and make sense of vast amounts of data to uncover facts and support high-stakes decisions.
- MFS Analysis: Octostar began life in 2023 with the very noble mission to empower investigators by providing the World’s Most Advanced and Adaptable Intelligence Platform. Coming into a world where new threats emerge daily, Octostar looks likely to be the solution to meet the evolving requirements of decision-makers in law enforcement, national security, and even AML/KYC use cases. Crucially, there is an element of flexibility in the Octostar platform which allows teams to create apps within the platform as new challenges are encountered. With €2m in funding, Octostar looks set to enter into an exciting growth chapter including a foray in to the US market.
SeeGap
Key Details:
- Website: seegap.com
- Year Founded: 2024
- Key People: Founder: David O'Keeffe
- Industry: MarTech, Consumer Packaged Goods, SaaS
- Overview: SeeGap is a Limerick-based startup that provides a platform for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands to engage with consumers directly from their product packaging. The company uses QR code technology to transform traditional packaging into an interactive, digital touchpoint.
- MFS Analysis: SeeGap was founded in 2023 with the ambitious goal of changing the way consumers interact with product packaging. In a world where consumer behavior has evolved considerably, packaging in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space has remained relatively static. In today's digital-first world, SeeGap is strategically positioned to close the feedback loop by connecting CPG/FMCG brands with their customers via QR code. It is the change in consumer behaviour which could prove key to SeeGap's growth. Their technology matches a growing demand for product transparency and information which will increase adoption rates and will, in turn, make their technology more sought after by brands looking to meet this demand as well as capture invaluable customer data points.
Solidroad
Key Details:
- Website: solidroad.com
- Year Founded: 2023
- Key People: Co-Founder & CEO: Mark Hughes; Co-Founder & CTO: Patrick Finlay
- Industry: AI, Customer Experience (CX) Software, SaaS
- Overview: Solidroad is a Dublin-founded AI company that has developed a quality assurance and training platform for CX and sales teams. The company's software acts as a "flight simulator" for customer-facing teams, helping them improve their performance through AI-driven training and feedback.
- MFS Analysis: Founded by Intercom alumni Mark Hughes and Patrick Finlay, Solidroad looks set to become a leader in the Ai transformation of customer experience. The Solidroad solution can reduce handling times, improve agent confidence, and increase customer satisfaction - and, crucially, can do it all in a scalable way. Companies that pride themselves on efficiency such as Ryanair have eliminated hours of manual work from their interview process with Solidroad. Having already generated huge momentum, CEO Hughes is understandably bullish about the company's prospects and is aiming to become "the definitive tool for hiring, onboarding and training employees at scale." Entering the market at a time when CX is ripe for transformation means Hughes' lofty vision looks like it is on course to become a reality.
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