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Dr John Favier and Dr Mohammad Ghaani, of NanobOx. Picture by Fergal Phillips
NanobOx
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.
The business uses nanobubbles, which, as the name suggests, operate at the nano scale
Aaron Clauson and Feargal Brady, co-founders of NoFrixion. Picture by Fergal Phillips
NoFrixion
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.
Keith ONeill, ceo, Novus Diagnostics
Novus Diagnostics
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.
Stephen Kelly, of Nualang. Picture by Fergal Phillips
Nualang
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.
Nicola Connolly, founder of Nunaïa
Nunaïa
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.
David Neville and Pádraic Hogan co-founders of Nurture
Nurture
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.
Neil Brady, managing director of Oatier photographed at their offices in Naas, County Kildare. Photo:Barry Cronin
Oatier
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.
The company has already raised €1.4 million in investor capital over two separate funding rounds in 2023
Aidan and Hilary O’Shea, co-founders of Otonomee
Otonomee
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.
Fidelma McGuirk, chief executive and founder of Payslip
Payslip
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.
Emma Meehan, founder of Precision Sports Technology
Precision Sports Technology
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.
Mark and Aisling Kirwan
Positive Carbon
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.
Tara and Brian Beattie co-founders of Prep Sheets
Prepsheets
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.
Jerome O’Connell, chief executive and co-founder of Proveye
Proveye
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.
a Dublin-based start-up that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to understand image data in the agriculture sector
Donald Hickey, CEO of Pumpinheart
Pumpinheart
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
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.
Speed of delivery is a key aspect of the offering from Prodensus
Liam Boggan and Paul Chew of Quantmatix
Quantmatix
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.
Kieran Supple, founder of Reap Interactive
Reap Interactive
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.
Prasad Gade, founderof RenewableBot
ReBot
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.
John OíGorman, CEO of Taxmatic; Ken Byrne, founder and CEO of Redsky Europe and Ger Egan, Co-founder and COO of REDSKY Europe. Picture Dylan Vaughan.
RedSky
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.
Alison Liddy, founder of Relevium Medical
Relevium Medical
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 Galway medtech firm has 10 staff and has raised €3.4 million in funding to date
Sean McLoughlin and Neil Hosey of ResHub. Picture by Fergal Phillips
ResHub
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
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.
The platform has been supported by the IRFU but there are opportunities beyond rugby
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