📈 Just starting out
January provided us with a new tech Unicorn, a who's who of exciting Irish startups and insinuations of an Irish mob controlling Silicon Valley
Welcome to the ninth edition of “The Land of Saints, Scholars, and Techies”!
2022 began apace with some massive stories that are hopefully a sign of things to come for the year ahead. January saw Ireland gain another Unicorn, profiles of some of the most exciting start-ups to watch and the latest cohort in the country’s leading accelerator, and the conversation on remote work continue
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The Stories
The 5th Unicorn of Ireland 🦄 2022 began with another Irish company achieving unicorn status. Flipdish an online ordering and marketing system for restaurants achieved a valuation of €1.25 billion with their most recent round of funding. The additional €80+ million investment will be leveraged to grow globally as well as fuel the hiring of more than 700 employees. Certainly, a positive start to the year for the Irish ecosystem as it gains its 5th Irish unicorn and the momentum from last year’s unicorns Letsgetchecked, Workhuman, and Fenergo continue.
A New Cohort 🆕 - Seven new Irish start-ups were announced in the first cohort of the NDRC accelerator for 2022. An exciting mix of companies and founders with varying levels of product-market fit and success to date offers significant hope when looking to the future. Good luck to the teams in Filter, Greyscout, Herd, Jama AI, Oogo, Squid and Upskill Marketplace who I am sure will feature in future editions here as well as the wider news.
StartUps to watch 🔭 - While the NDRC represents companies just starting out there are a number of Irish start-ups continuing to grow and thrive and who are set for big years in 2022. EU-Startups previewed ten - Manna, Evervault, Tines, Zipp, Content Llama, Fonoa, nSurely, Vaultree, bloXmove, and GH research. Equally, we saw Danalto and ID-Pal along with Greyscout from NDRC get recognition as part of the Irish Times innovation awards.
Entrepreneurial Ireland ☘️ An entrepreneurial wave seems to be gripping Ireland as 2021 saw 25,695 new start-ups officially registered. While some of this may be associated with people transitioning COVID passion projects to real businesses, the country as a whole is increasingly looking inward to grow our own businesses and create more success stories and unicorns across the island like those above in the coming years.
Elkstone fund 🦌 - The Irish tech ecosystem is filled with amazing talent and exciting companies and we are increasingly seeing the funding needed to support them. Elkstone announced a new €75 million fund in January aimed at investing in over 30 early-stage Irish companies in the coming years. Elkstone have enjoyed great recent successes and increasingly are being seen as a market scout for the best-known global VCs looking to invest in the best of Irish.
Remote work 🏠 vs 🏢- Conversations on remote work continued in the New Year perhaps heightened by the sudden reopening of society. The government published the initial details of the Right to Request Remote Working Bill 2021 to much criticism focused on the various reasons for which remote work can be refused and the speed of response required by companies. It is a conversation that will only grow as offices reopen and Irish employees look to retain a hybrid or remote work option.
A bright future 🔆 The CEO of Dogpatch Labs and NDRC, Patrick Walsh, spoke with David McWilliams this month to discuss the state of tech and start-ups in Ireland and in Europe. As one of the leading figures in the Irish start-up ecosystem, his thoughts on how the country is improving for start-ups but still has a way to go are worth considering. And while I don’t believe that too many FDIs will leave with our new higher tax rates the idea of giving greater focus to start-ups and innovation-driven businesses to drive the Irish economy is one that will have great benefits alongside the benefits from FDI.
Stripe Mobsters 💈 During a month with fewer big success stories for Stripe, despite announcing some exciting partnerships with Ford and Spotify, they still managed to make it to the newsletter. In January, tech Twitter was shaken by a Twitter thread from the CEO of another payments company - Bolt. In it, he claimed that Stripe and Y Combinator had conspired to accelerate Stripe’s success and create obstacles for their would-be competitors. The fallout has been fun to watch but ultimately has worked in Stripe’s favor with a who’s who of the tech world coming to their defence and some great gangster-related jokes provided.
Funding 💰 Irish companies continued to announce new funding through January. There were particularly significant raises for Exergyn and Cameramatics. Along with these companies including Medall, Clearword, Responsible, Project Mark, Ziggytec and Modmo announced new rounds of funding to chase their ambitions. This is despite a view that access to finance and funding is a significant challenge for Irish start-ups. If this can improve even further with funds like Elkstone above and more angel and VC activity we will surely see even more success stories over the coming years.
Jobs 👔 While headcounts are still being finalised for many companies January saw a number of job announcements to begin the new year.
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