The Week In Irish Startups
Irish VC's Latest Investment, Web3 Launch Event & Spin-Out Manager
Newsletter 106
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
AnotherTrip: AnotherTrip is the latest startup to join this year's NDRC Accelerator. We’ve all been there: scrolling Instagram for travel inspo, getting hyped for a trip, and then… the chaos begins. Endless WhatsApp threads, lost links, confusion over dates and budgets. Not anymore with AnotherTrip. It's making group travel effortless—seamlessly helping you build itineraries, coordinate plans, and align with friends directly from your favourite social apps. NDRC Accelerator startups receive €100k funding, personalised mentorship, perks, office space and a huge amount of value adds. AnotherTrip are also (as per last weeks’ newsletter), seeking a skilled and experienced Front-End Web Developer to join their team. Apply by sending your CV and a brief cover letter outlining your interest in the role and relevant experience to jobs@anothertrip.com.
TaxZap: Charlie Taylor reports that TaxZap, a startup, founded by Conor Duggan and Aaron Hickey, that has developed an app that can help self-employed workers get back tax refunds promptly, has raised £2.2 million (€2.6 million). TaxZap has raised from backers that include Aidan Corbett, co-founder and chief executive of Wayflyer. The funding round has been led by Affinity Ventures, whose partners were early investors in Zilch, which was recently ranked as the second fastest-growing company in fintech in Europe. Other backers include Nick Mullen, a partner at Happy Stack Ventures, and Henry De Zoete, former AI advisor to Rishi Sunak, the former UK prime minister.
Hydrolix: Irish Investor Frontline Ventures has invested in Hydrolix in a $80M Series C funding round. Hydrolix has become the go-to solution for some of the biggest events in the world when it comes to ingesting "mahoosive data" (100 terabytes/hour and beyond), including the 2024 Summer Olympics and cricket matches in India with 60 million viewers. Hydrolix for AWS is a CloudFront Service Ready partner and recently joined ISV Accelerate, AWS’s main co-selling program. Frontline Ventures will help further accelerate Hydrolix’s presence in European markets. Frontline Investor Brennan O’Donnell commented "What attracted us to Hydrolix was not just that they have a product that’s proven itself in production on the largest global stages, but that their timing aligns with market opportunities we already identified. Hydrolix already has a strong European presence, with customers such as Volkswagen, TUI Travel, and the Paris Olympics, and we're excited to support their continued expansion and investment across Europe."
Events/Programmes:
Solana Superteam Ireland Launch Event: The official launch of the Solana Superteam Ireland, a vibrant community dedicated to innovation, collaboration, and growth within Ireland’s Web3 ecosystem, takes place with a Monday Mixer at Toner's on this Monday 7th at 6pm. Join to enjoy an informal networking evening to connect with fellow Web3 enthusiasts. The official launch event will take place at Dogpatch Labs on this Tuesday, April 8th at 5pm. Expect an evening filled with engaging panel discussions, food, drinks, and networking. Special guests include Superteam UK members and Stephen Newnham, who'll share insights about building successful crypto communities. Reserve your spot here.
The Future of AI Voices - with ElevenLabs & Dogpatch Labs: ElevenLabs has landed in Ireland. Join their local team for an exclusive evening on Wednesday April 9th at Dogpatch Labs to explore the future of voice technology and connect with the Irish AI community. Whether you're building with voice or just curious about new AI trends, this is for you. There’ll be a Workshop on Agentic AI, Fireside Chat with CEOs of Jentic.com and LearnLingo.ai, Product Demos from guest speakers and more. There’s 3 places left to register here.
Hiring:
Trinity College: TCD is seeking to appoint an experienced commercially focussed Spin-out Development Manager to join the Knowledge Exchange (KnEx) team at Trinity Innovation and Enterprise (TrI&E). The Spin-out Development Manager role provides a structured approach to managing the high-value spin-out pipeline from ideation to company formation and future commercial development. The role supports the building of credible business cases, forming effective teams and making introductions to investors. Responsibilities will include managing a portfolio of new and existing Trinity spin-out companies from all faculties and institutes in line with Trinity’s Policy, Practice and Regulations on Intellectual Property. A typical year will target 6 new companies created from the portfolio raising in excess of €5m capital in total. Click here for more role details including salary info.
Mastercard: Mastercard are hiring for the role of Senior Specialist, Start Path Accelerator, Europe. You will support Mastercard’s engagement with fintech startups across Europe, helping to identify, onboard, and collaborate with high-potential companies through the Start Path Accelerator and other fintech programs. Your focus will be on executing Mastercard’s fintech partnership strategy, working closely with business development (BD) teams, product teams, and regional divisions to drive fintech adoption of Mastercard products and services. The role responsibilities will include sourcing and evaluating fintech startups for Mastercard’s Start Path accelerator program, ensuring alignment with Mastercard’s strategic objectives. Click here for a full job spec.
Abundant: YC company and Baseline resident, Abundant, are seeking a Technical Ads Strategist with a deep understanding of online advertising strategies and the technical skills to ensure our ad operations run smoothly. The ideal candidate will have experience working at an ads agency or on an ad tech team (e.g., YouTube, Meta), or a strong solution engineering background. This role can be part-time or full-time on a contract basis and is fully remote. In this position, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams to design, implement, and maintain effective ad campaigns while ensuring code correctness and compliance with business requirements. For more details and to apply click here.
Great Startup Roles: Ben Lang has another great list of high quality startups hiring. Here's a new list of 23 seed-stage startups on a breakout trajectory. All at $5M+ in run-rate revenue + 100% year-over-year growth. All are hiring. A number of these roles are remote. He also has a new list of 33 tiny startup teams (<5 people) backed by top-tier funds that all are now hiring here. Again there are a number of remote roles and some hiring in London.
Best,
Ed
PS. How To Take Cash Off The Table: As a founder are you wondering how you can take some cash off the table? Michael Bambrick of Irish law firm Wallace Corporate Counsel covers this here. He explores secondary sales, what they are, strategic considerations for a founder doing this and how to navigate the process.
PPS. Passive Investing: Paddy Delaney of Informed Decisions has covers ‘Why Indexing Still Wins for Long-Term Investors and Pension Holders’ here. He also has these great stats: Each year, S&P Global Ratings publishes a detailed report comparing actively managed funds with passive index funds. Their 2024 findings? More of the same: around two-thirds of active managers underperformed passive index funds in 2024. And when you zoom out over the past 15 years, the picture becomes even clearer: about 90% of active funds underperform low-cost index funds and ETFs.