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Aviva Cohen one of the co-founders of SeamlessCare

seamlessCARE

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.

Shirley Gallagher and John Byrne of SLBS

Second Life
Battery Services

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.

Dr Steve Comby and Brendan Rice of Senoptica Technologies

Senoptica

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.

Shane O’Connor and Richard Sharp, co-founders of The Seriously Sound Food Co

Seriously Sound Food Co

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.

Sarah Carroll Kelly, jewellery designer of Shock of Grey

Shock of Grey

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.

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

Aoife Matthews, Jennifer O’Connell & Louise O’Riordan, founders of SISTERLY a range developed specifically for women

Sisterly

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.

Alan Power, founder of SizeWise

SizeWise

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.

Daniel Coen, founder of Skippio

Skippio

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.

Dr Tony Callaghan and Dr Alejandra Omarini In their Soma Tech lab in Ballybay, Co. Monaghan.

SomaTech

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.

Judi O’Malley, founder of Spiorad Medical

Spiorad Medical

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.

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

Emer O’Dwyer, founder of Spotlight Skills

Spotlight Skills

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.

Karl O’Brien, Co-founder of StoreHero

StoreHero

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.

Shana Chu of TAILR

Tailr

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.

Conor Tansey and Paul Tansey of Tantek4D

Tantek4D

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.

Alex and Kerri Sheeran of Taly Subscriptions

Taly Subscriptions

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.

Aisling Cullen, founder of Thanks Plants.

Thanks Plants

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.

Denise Lauaki and Sinéad Crowther of Tonstix

Tonstix

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.

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.

Stephen O’Dwyer, founder of TrojanTrack, with retired Irish champion racehorse Faugheen

TrojanTrack

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.

Patrick Barry (left) & Niall O’Reilly, Co-founders of Tyro Schools

Tyro Schools

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 founders Alan McDonald and Gerard McDonald

Unbanx founders Alan McDonald and Gerard McDonald

Unbanx

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.

Ryan Lasmaili, of Vaultree

vaultree

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.

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

Veronica Breene, founder of Vesta Insights

Vesta insights

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.

Fabio Alessandrelli, Rémi Verschelde, Juan Linietsky, and Nicola Farronato

w4 games

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.

Lauren Duggan and Fiona Parfrey from We Are Riley

we are riley

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.

David Barrett, chief executive of Welliba

welliba

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.

Welliba has developed a software platform that measures employee engagement and identifies what factors drive performance

Darren O’Reilly, former Leinster player and founder of Whole Supp

whole supp

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.

Patrick Magee, chief executive of Wiistream

wiistream

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.

Aaron Boylan and Ronan Hearne, Co-Founders of WindCapture Technologies

windcapture technologies

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.

Frank Sullivan, Frances Abeton and Phil Blackwell, WHYZE Health founders

whyze health

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.