Irish Startup Funding was €992 million in 2025

TechIreland has released its Irish Startup Funding Review 2026 Edition, a report of startup fundraising activity in 2025. The report shows that 319 Irish startups raised a total of €992 million last year. Since the highs of 2021, annual fundraising now appears to have settled at around the €900m–€1 billion mark, with the 2025 total up just €14m compared to 2024. In terms of the number of companies raising funding, there was also a slight uptick from 2024, when 307 companies raised funding.

Irish Startup Funding

Early-stage activity remained notably strong – primarily attributed to Enterprise Ireland’s PSSF and HPSU supports. A record 211 companies raised up to €1 million while data also reveals that there is an ongoing challenge in scaling into Series A and beyond, where momentum continues to lag.

As in previous years, a small number of large outliers skewed the total figure. The top four companies: Lets Get Checked (€150m), XOCEAN (€115m), Tines (€114m), and ProVerum (€73m), accounted for nearly half of all funding raised.

Furthermore, the majority of large rounds were concentrated in Q1, which alone accounted for €616m raised – a record high for any quarter over the last ten years. This, however, reveals a more concerning picture for the following three quarters, in which fundraising activity sharply cooled, with just €376m raised over the remainder of the year.

Deep Dive into 2025

A standout first quarter saw 69 Irish companies raise €616m, making Q1 2025 one of the strongest quarters on record for Irish startup funding. However, funding levels flattened significantly during the remaining quarters, with a combined funding total of only €376m, across 250 startups, underlying a weakened momentum after Q1.

The findings align with new figures from the Irish Venture Capital Association VenturePulse survey, published in association with William Fry, which show that Irish technology SMEs raised €221.7m in venture capital in Q1 2026, a fall of 58% compared with the same period last year. IVCA noted that the decline should be viewed in the context of an exceptionally strong Q1 2025, when Irish firms raised more than half a billion euro – a record for a first quarter.

Early Stages

Early-stage funding activity reached an all-time high in 2025, with 211 companies raising rounds below €1m. This was largely driven by Enterprise Ireland, including the 198 startups announced at the StartUp Day 2026.

Despite the strength of early-stage activity, the report identifies ongoing weakness in follow-on and scale-up funding.

• The number of €1-5m rounds increased to 58
• However, €5-30m rounds declined to pre-2019 levels
• Large growth rounds above €30m remained relatively stable, though most were concentrated in Q1

Findings suggest that while Ireland continues to generate new startups at scale, access to follow-on capital is becoming increasingly competitive. The IVCA’s Q1 2026 data suggests that these pressures are continuing into the new year. IVCA reported that funding declined across all deal-size bands except transactions of less than €1 million.

The report also notes that just four outlier deals accounted for 46% of all funding, showing the extent to which headline totals remain dependent on a small number of large rounds.

Sectoral Focus

Life Sciences retained its position as the strongest-funded sector in Ireland during 2025, accounting for more than half of total funding. Major rounds included LetsGetChecked, ProVerum, Deciphex and Perfuze. Enterprise Software and FinTech followed as the second and third strongest sectors, both performing better than in the previous two years.

Several of the year’s largest rounds reflected Ireland’s growing reputation in deep tech, AI, medtech, and robotics. Enterprise Ireland also notes growing momentum in AI-enabled solutions, with 99 of its supported startups in 2025 incorporating AI as a central part of their product or service.

The report also notes a sharp decline in Energy/CleanTech funding, falling from €328m in 2024 to €41m in 2025, reflecting a slowdown in large capital-intensive rounds within the sector (Source: Dealroom chart).

EU Ranking

The report also highlights Ireland’s continued international standing. Dublin and Cork both feature among Europe’s tech ecosystems in Dealroom’s Global Tech Ecosystem Index 2026, with Dublin ranking 40th in Dealroom’s Global Champions index and 9th among the top Global Champions in Europe.

Regional Spread

Dublin companies raised €667.5m across 192 companies, representing around 60% of funded companies and 67% of total investment value in 2025. Outside Dublin, startup activity remained widespread, with Galway, Louth, Cork, Wicklow and Antrim amongst the strongest performing regional hubs. Companies outside Dublin raised €210.1m.

Northern Ireland companies raised more than €114m, with funding concentrated in Antrim. This is the third consecutive year that startup funding in Northern Ireland has shown strong growth, with €71m (2025) and €40m (2024) raised in two previous years.

Female-founder funding remains at 15%

Funding going to female founders remained static compared with last year at around 15% of total funding. In value terms, female-founded companies raised €146 million across 92 companies in 2025. TechIreland notes that while there is still work to do, Ireland compares favourably with other markets where the percentage of funding going to female founders can be as low as 2%.

Responding to the report;

Chair of TechIreland, Brian Caulfield said, “2025 was very much a curate’s egg. It was good in parts, mainly in Q1, when 69 Irish companies raised a total of €616 million. That was the best quarter for fundraising in Ireland for 10 years. Unfortunately, the rest of the year saw a return to weakness with just €376m raised by 250 companies across the rest of the year. Once again, just 4 outliers represented almost half of all funding (46%). More widely, the pattern of Irish companies being underfunded relative to international competitors remains a worry.”

Further comments on the report’s findings:

• Conor O’Donovan, Head of Startups, Enterprise Ireland said, “Enterprise Ireland’s ambition is to ensure that exporting Irish companies become a primary driver of the Irish economy. Central to this is supporting the next generation of high-potential startups by enabling access to finance, building capability, and supporting international growth. It is particularly encouraging that early-stage activity continues to strengthen, with a record number of companies accessing initial funding. At the same time, challenges in accessing scaling capital remain. Enterprise Ireland’s new investment strategy moves beyond early-stage funding to multi-stage investing, enabling larger funding rounds and providing greater support for Irish companies to scale.”
• Sarah-Jane Larkin, Director General, Irish Venture Capital Association said, “In the current global environment, heightened geopolitical uncertainty and volatility in international markets are likely to reinforce investor caution. For Ireland, this underlines the importance of maintaining and accelerating the Finance for Scaling agenda—this work led by the Department of Enterprise is critical to ensuring that indigenous companies can access the depth of capital required to grow, compete internationally, and become long-term employers.”
• Clare Ryan, CEO and Co-Founder of ITUS Secure Technologies said, “The imbalance between regional and Dublin-based fundraising still persists. Starting and scaling a company outside Dublin can indeed feel remote to capital, networks, and visibility. For founders based in regions, it often seems we have to prove both that the company model works and that the region does too.”
• Margaret Rae, CEO and Founder of Konree Innovation said, “The figures are strong and show Irish founded companies continue to attract strong investment. 2025 was challenging and 2026 is equally challenging as the large AI companies continue to draw in most of the investment funding. It’s good to see companies in the science, hardware and devices spaces do well. As AI levels the playing field in other areas, these companies will continue to attract strong interest and investment.”

The full report will be on the TechIreland content page: LINK

About TechIreland 

TechIreland is a unique all-island portal that showcases startups and the Irish innovation landscape. Its mission is to raise Ireland’s innovation reputation by tracking, promoting, representing, and connecting the Irish startup and innovation community here and internationally. As a comprehensive repository, TechIreland promotes the startup community through data, insights and connections.

Website: www.techireland.org

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