The Week In Irish Startups
Cork Founder Raises Big, Meet WakeUp Capital & Fastest Growing Startups Hiring
Newsletter 116
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:
Anam: Irish cofounded Anam has raised a $9M Seed round, led by Redpoint Ventures alongside co-investors Mati Staniszewski of Eleven Labs, Erik Bernhardsson of Modal, Concept Ventures, and Torch Capital. Anam’s founders are Caoimhe Murphy and Ben Carr. According to Redpoint, Anam are also launching their One Shot model: drop in a single image, and Anam creates a fully-generated AI persona where every pixel is rendered live. Charlie Taylor has further details on Anam and Murphy here including how entrepreneurship runs in the family.
NDRC Extension: Charlie Taylor and Cónal Thomas report that a proposal to grant a one-year extension to the NDRC is to be brought before cabinet in the coming weeks. The move comes amid uncertainty as to the long-term future of the accelerator, even after a decision to shutter the programme was reversed by the new government in January. You can read more on developments in the Business Post here. Charlie Taylor has an opinion piece here covering why he believes that putting NDRC on life support is no help to anyone.
Baseline: Created by Eamon Leonard and Fiona Kelly, Baseline is a community and workspace where founders build together and support each other. They also run a bi-annual event in Ireland called Rebase. It is an international gathering, a place for early stage Irish and later stage European founders to get to know each other. Both are unique sources of Irish and international deal flow for Baseline as a fund. With this in mind they want to share deal flow with experienced angel investors, who are based outside of Ireland, and are exited founders or operators, or have built and / or sold technology to fast growing companies, or have deep technical or commercial backgrounds This is not a syndicate. They'll regularly share details of pre-seed founders who are raising, and they'll make an intro if you want to learn more. There are no fees, or hidden costs, or expectations. They just want to help founders in Ireland meet experienced international angel investors. To register your interest and for more info click here.
Sunrise Robotics: Jeremy Kahn reports that Sunrise Robotics, a startup building modular industrial robotics and AI models that makes them simple to deploy in different environments, has emerged from stealth with $8.5 million in seed funding. The investment round is being led by Plural, a London-based early stage venture capital firm formed by a group of prominent startup founders including Wise cofounder Taavet Hinrikus and SongKick cofounder Ian Hogarth. Venture capital firms Tapestry, Seedcamp, Tiny.vc and Prototype Capital also participated in the funding. Sunrise is cofounded by Corkman Joe Perrott. Perrott previously worked with Liam Casey’s PCH International.
Events/Programmes:
WakeUp Capital Office Hours: Are you looking to raise capital? Looking to learn more about WakeUp Capital? Join WakeUp Capital partners Faye Walsh Drouillard and Mark Peters on Thursday 26th of June for Investor Office Hours at the AWS Startup Loft in Dublin. WakeUp Capital is Ireland’s leading early-stage climate and impact VC, driving systemic change for people and the planet. WakeUp Capital invest in visionary entrepreneurs whose tech-driven solutions push forward climate resilience and social equity, providing the funding and expertise they need to succeed. Register for free here to join.
Cybersecurity for Health: The Cybersecurity for Health conference takes place at DKIT, Dundalk on Wednesday July 2nd. It’s a one-day conference for healthcare providers, SMEs / corporates, and academics in the health sector, focusing on cyber security. It will address cybersecurity challenges and explore cutting-edge solutions tailored to the healthcare sector. Talks will include "The Future of Cybersecurity in Healthcare" delivered by Ionet Ionescu, of AWS. Ionut Ionescu is a Principal Security Architect with AWS specialising in security architecture, threat modelling and enterprise cyber defence and operations. Other speakers will include Paul Stanley - Head of Engagement, National Cyber Security Centre. The conference is supported by InterTrade Ireland, with collaboration from Cyber Ireland, NI Cyber, and HIRANI. For more info and to register click here.
Hiring:
Storehero: NDRC alumnus, Storehero are hiring for a founding GTM role. According to the job spec, this is not just a sales job, the successful candidate will own revenue and build the engine from the ground up — everything from closing early deals to shaping their sales motion, refining their ICP, driving TOF, and building the repeatable system that powers the next stage of StoreHero. This is a remote-first role, if you're based in Ireland you can work full time from their office. Click here for a full job spec.
Fastest Growing Startups Hiring: According to Kyle Thomas, these 39 startups raised their Series C this year, are growing fast, and HIRING. These companies are in the 100th to 93rd percentile when looking at a combined average growth rate of Social, Web, Employee, and Mobile growth over the last 8 weeks. PitchBook has also ranked them all with >90% success probability (take this with a grain of salt, but it's a data point). While most roles are in SF and NYC there are a significant number that are remote.
Business Post: Business Post Experiences are hiring for a number of roles. Business Post Experiences hosts events, conferences, exhibitions and brand experiences. They produce live, hybrid and virtual events curating dynamic content. They recently hosted the Connected CIO Summit. The roles they’re hiring for include Head of Events - Strategy & Product, Delegate Sales Manager, Commercial Sales Manager and Senior Events / Operations Manager.
Clarendon Fund Managers: The B Corp-certified Belfast venture capital firm Clarendon Fund Managers are hiring for a Portfolio and Finance Manager. The successful candidate will help drive the financial operations of their funds and portfolio companies. The Portfolio and Finance Manager will play a critical role in ensuring the efficient financial operation of their funds and portfolio. This role involves close coordination with investment teams, administrators, auditors, and investors, covering everything from reporting and compliance to valuations and capital activity. Click here for a full job spec and salary details.
Best,
Ed
PS. 5 Fatal Technology Red Flags That Sink Startups: DC Cahalane completes his trilogy on startup red flags here turning his attention to the technology decisions that can make or break your venture. He previously examined deal-killers that repel investors and go-to-market flaws that stall growth, and this article now focus on the technical missteps that can silently sabotage otherwise promising companies.
PPS. Experiments: I want to try a few new products over 2025 to see what’s possible, This week I played around with ElevenLabs. In short you can type in text and it creates a voiceover. You can also take a sample of your voice, upload it, and then going forward type content which it will turn into audio using that sample. The sample it generated for me didn’t sound particularly like my voice but you need a high quality mic and a larger high quality bank of your own audio recordings to make it effective. I just recorded 3 short clips. Dan Kleft has some excellent tips in this video on getting the most out of ElevenLabs.