The Week In Irish Startups
Irish Startups Raising, Marbella Founder Retreat & Head of Marketing Role
Newsletter 118
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:
Wayflyer: Charlie Taylor reports that Wayflyer, the ecommerce firm, has raised an additional $35 million in funding in a Series B extension round, newly filed documents reveal. The financing was led by Balderton Capital, which has previously backed the likes of Revolut, Graphcore and Circle. A number of existing backers, including Ace Ventures, DST Global, QED, Madrone Capital Partners, and Left Lane Capital, also participated in the new raise.
D4H Technologies: Tom Lyons reports that, D4H Technologies, founded by Robin Blandford has been acquired by EcoOnline, a leading safety and sustainability software vendor that was founded in 2000. D4H is working on everything from hurricane response to wildfires to cyberattacks. Blandford has quietly grown D4H Technologies, a global crisis and emergency management software that now supports more than 500 customers worldwide. Since founding the company in 2008, they’ve grown D4H with just €50,000 in early external funding from Enterprise Ireland. The D4H Technologies acquirer EcoOnline, is backed by British private equity firm Apax Partners, EcoOnline is a major player, serving over 11,000 customers with its safety and sustainability solutions.
VisionR: Charlie Taylor reports that VisionR, an Irish tech company that uses AI to provide brick and mortar retailers with the same sort of data analytics that e-commerce firms typically have access to, has raised €1.4 million from investors. Founded by Oran Mulvey and Shane O’Sullivan in 2017, VisionR has developed a retail analytics platform that anonymously captures customer data to give offline retailers valuable insights into customer behaviour. The new raise has been led by Middlegame Ventures. Other participants include Delta Partners and Enterprise Ireland and angels including Sean Mitchell, co-founder of Movidius and Pointy cofounder Charles Bibby.
Talio: Ann O’Dea reports that Talio, a Dublin-based AI start-up founded by Oran O’Flynn and Ciaran O’Connor, has raised a total of $1m in funding for its platform which gathers data from menus, retail and social media to identify trends and to guide users all the way through to concept creation. Customers already include Kerry Group. Talio has received investment from Barry Connolly, founder of Fulfil and Richmond Marketing; Matthew Peat also of Richmond Marketing; and Karen Reilly, former Red Bull marketing executive. Talio highlighted the supported they received from E.I and in particular Cillian Sugrue (now of Elkstone). O’Flynn and O’Connor originally met on a 12-week Founders accelerator programme operated by Dogpatch Labs and funded by NDRC
Events/Programmes:
Entrepreneur Experiment Retreat: The top business podcast, The Entrepreneur Experiment, hosted by Gary Fox is hosting its first retreat. This will take place Wednesday, Sept 3rd – Sunday, Sept 7th in Marbella. This is five days in paradise with a hand-picked group of just eight ambitious founders — curated for connection, breakthroughs, and real progress. The retreat will be taking over the stunning Marbella Fitness Camp to create an immersive founder reset, combining business, body and brain. The total cost, excluding flight, is €1,999 + VAT. This includes all food, soft drinks & accommodation. Interested in attending? You can apply here.
The Pressure Cooker at Baseline: "The Pressure Cooker" - is an accountability program for startups that emerged organically from the Baseline founder community. The program consists of groups of 6-8 startups who meet weekly over an 8-week period, focusing specifically on outcomes that impact core business fundamentals: product, users, and revenue. The initiative was sparked by community member Meji Abidoye and later developed by another member Paddy Monahan, emphasizing peer support over traditional content-driven programs. On this Friday, July 4th, current participants will share their progress and learnings with the broader Baseline community. The program addresses a common founder challenge - confusing motion with progress and being busy rather than productive. Interested founders can register to attend the progress sharing session or join future Pressure Cooker groups here. Baseline cofounder Eamon Leonard has more details here also.
Hiring:
Shinka: Dublin-based AdTech platform Shinka specializes in programmatic monetization across Connected TV and Digital Out-of-Home advertising. Their cutting-edge platform connects advertisers with publishers, processing billions of ad requests daily and delivering measurable results through innovative technology and strategic partnerships. They are hiring for a Partnerships Manager. This role combines product expertise with strategic partnership management, focusing on onboarding new customers and managing critical technology integrations. You'll develop and maintain relationships with key technology partners including DSPs, SSPs and data providers, negotiate partnership agreements and commercial terms, and manage comprehensive customer onboarding processes. The ideal candidate will have 3-5 years of AdTech or programmatic advertising experience, strong analytical skills, and deep understanding of the digital advertising ecosystem including RTB protocols and OpenRTB standards. For more details and to apply, click here.
Jentic: Dublin-based AI infrastructure startup Jentic is building the core integration layer for AI, creating middleware that enables developers to connect AI systems to APIs easily and securely. Led by repeat founders and backed by top-tier investors, they're developing open-source communication and orchestration tools for autonomous agents. They are hiring for a Head of Marketing (primarily in-office, Dublin 2). As their marketing leader, you'll own the end-to-end marketing function from strategy to execution, launch their open-source project across Product Hunt and Hacker News, develop campaigns across content and PR, and build developer communities on Discord and GitHub. You'll create compelling narratives that translate deep tech into inspiring stories while managing metrics across brand, growth, and retention. For more details and to apply, click here.
Remote Jobs: Daniel Wolken shares 29 remote roles hiring right now here with salary details. These include roles with Reddit, Gusto and Vanta.
Series A Remote Roles: Caitlin Cooke has new remote jobs here at early-stage startups across all disciplines. She typically share companies that have a multitude of opportunities across different skillsets. She lists Series A companies hiring here. These companies include Lokalise, Restream and Plain across Europe.
Rebrandly: Branded link-management platform Rebrandly has been recognized as one of the leading software companies globally by G2. Their platform ensures links are safe, secure, and engaging for individuals, agencies, businesses, and developers, serving millions of users including global brands like Versace, Toyota, PayPal, and Zillow. They are hiring for a Senior Technical Lead (fully remote in Spain and Ireland). This leadership role combines deep technical expertise with team management, leading the design and implementation of serverless backend infrastructure using Node.js and Python within AWS environments. You'll mentor a team of engineers, establish technical standards, collaborate with product managers to translate business requirements into technical solutions, and drive architectural decisions for scalable systems. The ideal candidate will have 8+ years of software development experience with 3+ years in technical leadership, expert-level proficiency in Node.js and Python, and extensive experience with AWS serverless solutions including Lambda, API Gateway, and DynamoDB. For more details and to apply, click here.
Best,
Ed
PS. Experiment x Claude Artifacts: I just used Claude Artifacts to create a draft logo for an event. Claude Artifacts let you create interactive tools, documents, and prototypes directly in your AI conversation - think live code that actually runs, not just snippets to copy-paste. Instead of describing what you want built, you get a working version instantly that you can test, iterate on, and refine through simple feedback. For founders, this means creating pitch deck content, or generating marketing copy without switching between multiple platforms. It's like having a developer, designer, and writer collaborating with you in real-time, turning ideas into tangible assets within minutes.