💸 Get that Money
Irish companies enjoy a rich November with a significant acquisition and lots of funding while a new Irish Unicorn looks set to emerge
Welcome to the seventh edition of “The Land of Saints, Scholars, and Techies”!
As winter draws in and restrictions return Irish tech and start-ups show no sign of slowing as we experience a massive month for funding, acquisitions, and more within the tech ecosystem.
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The Stories
Who says teaching doesn’t pay 🤖 Irish start-up Robotify was acquired by Imagine Learning for an expected €20 million. The company teaches students to code through the use of robots and simulation. The company has enjoyed rapid success from 2015 and despite recent statements saying they would be not be selling the opportunity and offer was too good to pass up. Not a bad journey from €3,000 to €20 million for the two friends.
Giving sports teams an edge ⚽ Kitman Labs raised more than $50 million in November to continue its impressive growth and journey to deliver the sport’s industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle. The company already counts more than 700 leading sports teams as clients and with this funding will be aiming to improve the insights and analytics it can provide in sport. (As a sports nut I had to push them to second in stories)
Health can bring wealth 👩🔬 Another Irish company announced a significant funding round in the month, as Nuritas announced a $45 million round. The biotech company leverages an AI platform to identify beneficial peptides that may be used to improve health. Having grown initially with early backers from Bono and the Edge to Marc Benioff, this new round will be used to expand the companies presence in the US and scale operations.
Funding Flowing 💰 November was a very busy month for investment in Irish businesses. This is reflected in the YOY change according to the Irish Venture Capital Association. The month saw Talivest, Vaultree, Bidx1, Selazar, BSecur, Content Llama, Oneview Healthcare, Outmin, Klir, and Fonoa all raise money. Congrats to all involved and I am excited to see a growth in the rate of seed funding for the next generation of Irish companies.
Stripe backs Irish 💈 As usual Stripe made more news this month as they co-led a round of funding for another Irish-founded start-up Imprint. It continues Stripe’s recent funding and acquisition activity as they seek to broaden their reach within the payments landscape. Stripe was busy backing a teen accelerator too. The company signed a three-year partnership with Patch to support its aims of facilitating the technical leaders of tomorrow and potentially, finding the next Collison brother.
Tech may be the key to Sustainability 🌎 Amarach Research published a report in November explaining how digital technology may be key to the state meeting its sustainability goals. The drive for sustainability will need to include technologies like IoT, robotics, and big data amongst others and Irish companies such as XOcean, Oceanenergy, Gridbeyond, UrbanVolt, and Ecocem will be key to this.
Guinness is good for Business 🏢 The Guinness Enterprise Centre opened its doors following a €10m expansion as well as announcing more investment. This expansion will support a number of start-ups as well as programs and incubators and together with locations like Dogpatch and Talent Garden continues to build the infrastructure for Dublin start-ups to succeed.
Dublin as Innovation City 🌆 Dublin was a runner-up in the European Capital of Innovation awards announced during the month losing out to Dortmund. The award recognises cities’ long-term efforts to create an environment that enables and embraces innovation and while Dublin certainly has its issues this external validation can only be positively viewed by Dubs like me.
A new Unicorn set to emerge 🦄 Irish e-commerce company Wayflyer looks set to become the state’s latest Unicorn as it seeks new funding in a Series B. This is a rapid acceleration for a company only established in 2019 and shows that Irish companies can scale and achieve success at the rocketship pace seen in the US and other European countries. This writeup in TechCrunch from earlier in the year with their Series A is probably to the best place to learn more.
Jobs 👔 November continued to provide jobs announcements across Irish tech and start-ups
If there are any roles/ job announcements you would like me to share in the next edition feel free to reach out.
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My Story and The Land’s Background
👋 To quickly introduce myself to anyone new … My name is Seán. I am in my late 20s, I was born and raised largely in Dublin so apologies if my capital bias may sometimes show up. I work in a start-up within the tech industry and believe that the Irish market and ecosystem is a dynamic one for such a small country.
With COVID and too much time on my hands, I decided to create this newsletter to capture the biggest stories and provide some commentary and thoughts of my own. My aim is to provide value to my readers by curating and commenting on what I believe to be the most compelling stories so you can stay informed with one quick email.
Thank you for taking some time out of your busy lives to read!
💬 Contact me: thelandsst@gmail.com
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Cheers,
Seán