The Week In Irish Startups

3 Raises, Female Founder Programme & VC Backed Startup Roles

Newsletter 86

Hi folks,

Here’s the main events, funding and hiring news this week that I thought you might find of interest in the Irish Start-up Ecosystem:

Funding/Investor News

Customs Window: RTE reports that Irish RegTech start-up company Customs Window Technologies has closed a €800,000 seed funding round. Customs Window Technologies provides companies with a smart comprehensive system to address the increasing complexity and volume of customs declarations and associated compliance requirements. Its latest funding round, led by private and EIIS investors, with the support of Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) funding, will be used by the company to scale into the UK market.

Payslip: Sean Pollock reports that the Mayo-based payroll technology company, Payslip, has raised €1.5m in a funding round as it looks to enhance its artificial intelligence offering. The investment for the Westport-headquartered company, founded by entrepreneur Fidelma McGuirk in 2016, was a follow-on round from previous backers, including Irish-based venture capital firms Frontline Ventures and Tribal.VC.

Ulysses: Will Goodbody reports that autonomous marine drone startup, Ulysses Ecosystem Engineering, has raised $2m in pre-seed funding. The oversubscribed round was led by Lowercarbon Capital with Superorganism, the world's first biodiversity VC, and ReGen Ventures, an investor in planetary-scale regenerative technologies, also participated. Angel investors, including Intercom co-founders Eoghan McCabe and Ciaran Lee, also took part. The now San Francisco based firm was founded in 2023 by Irish engineers Will O'Brien and Colm O'Brien along with Akhil Voorakkara, Jamie Wedderburn. Gary Fox of the Entrepreneur Experiment just had Will O’Brien on his podcast last week, you can watch further here.

Events/Programmes:

Going for Growth: A call for applicants for the award winning Going for Growth initiative is open at present. Those who will benefit most from participation are ambitious female entrepreneurs who are serious about bringing their business to the next level. This peer support initiative is supported by Enterprise Ireland and KPMG. It is focused on Lead Entrepreneur facilitated round tables, all of whom are volunteers. The round tables are based on mutual support and accountability on self-defined goals and milestones, which bring about significant progress over the six-month cycle. Applications close on November 15th. To apply and for more info click here. Lead entrepreneurs listed on site include Payslip founder Fidelma McGuirk and Oonagh O’Hagan, owner of Meaghers Pharmacy Group.

HubSpot Pitch Perfect: Join HubSpot and their VC guests on November 12th for a live session where startup founders like you, can take the stage to pitch your innovative ideas to a panel of seasoned investors! Registrants will also get access to freebies from HubSpot - including free pitch deck templates and sample elevator pitch outline that have been validated by our investors. Investor speakers include Claire Mongeau of Founders Factory. For more info and to register click here.

Hiring

Cloudsmith: Cloudsmith is an end-to-end software supply chain product. Cloudsmith allows enterprises who make software to control, secure, and distribute software assets to teams, pipelines and customers. They are hiring for a number of different roles including Data Engineer, Senior Software Engineer and Performance Engineer.
One interesting role they’re currently hiring for is Design Lead, Brand & Communications. Cloudsmith’s customers are typically large enterprises who are looking to control, secure, and distribute their software. As a design lead, working on brand and communications, you will oversee and work on a variety of creative projects to elevate and communicate their brand including Brand development wherein you’ll oversee the continued evolution of their brand design language to help them address new needs and contexts. For lots more info on this role and to apply click here.

Trustap: Trustap is an award-winning Irish Fintech startup offering exciting new technology to marketplaces all over the world. Their unique product works to protect buyers and sellers in a variety of different transactions by briefly holding payments until the pre-agreed milestones have been met. They are passionate about creating innovative solutions that empower marketplaces to become transactional by integrating with our API. Trustap provides instant modernisation of legacy platforms. They are looking for a talented and driven individual to join their team as a Sales Manager. To apply and for more info click here.

Best,

Ed

P.S 4 Lessons from working in VC I wish I knew as a Founder: Dylan Scully is an investor at Frontline Ventures and previously was a founder himself. Here he shares four lessons he has learned as early indicators of success in companies. His lessons include articulating a vision that is both precise and BIG and he discusses how to do this. You can read more here.

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