🤑 Stripe growing at home
Drones deliver smartphones in Galway, Irish female founders increase funding, & the EU looks to build its digital presence
Welcome to the second edition of “The Land of Saints, Scholars, and Techies”!
Thank you to the 23 new subscribers to “The Land” who have joined following my first release in February! My family isn’t that big so I know it is more than just them. I hope you continue to read and enjoy and would love if you would share with your own network. If you aren’t subscribed and new here, why not become the 24th and level up your knowledge on the Irish tech and start-up scene.
👋 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 within the tech industry and believe that the Irish market and ecosystem is a dynamic one for 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. Thank you for taking some time out of your busy lives to read and I hope it provides value to you.
If you have any feedback on it do let me know as I am only at the start of this journey and all ears on how I can improve.
March is normally the month we Irish emerge from the winter darkness, celebrate our national holiday, and really get moving! We saw evidence of this and more during the month across technology and start-ups in Ireland.
Stripe became one of the highest-valued private companies, micro-mobility began motoring and Irish start-ups continued to enjoy success through new partnerships and successful exits.
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Not bad for two boys from Tipp ☘️ - Having discussed the rumours of a $115 billion valuation and ongoing growth for Stripe in our February edition, more success came their way in March (Coincidence? I’ll let you decide). They raised $600 million pushing their current valuation to over $95 billion and officially making them the most valuable private company outside of China.
The Irish National Treasury Management Agency was part of this funding round and the funding will see over 1,000 jobs brought to Ireland in the coming years. This will bring massive disruption to the job market here as Stripe will compete with all other incumbent premium players for talent across technology and professional services.
While the headlines may say that Stripe is a payments company it is so much more complex than that and so if you are looking for a deeper breakdown and insight into Stripe check out this deep analysis by CBinsights, a breakdown by Packy McCormick in NotBoring, and this interview with Patrick himself. With these, you will be set to impress in the many conversations on Stripe sure to happen in the coming years.
This is great news for Ireland. However, it must be said it is also an opportunity missed to have had Stripe originally grow from Ireland - unlucky for whoever made that decision in EI…
Irish exits 💸 - Irish martech and data analytics company Boxever was acquired by Sitecore as part of a wider acquisition plan. To emerge from the pandemic with this exit must be seen as a big success and was certainly celebrated by the tech community and some of their investors. Having known some of the team in Boxever I have to say this was one story that definitely brought me joy as it seems Sitecore look set to prioritise Boxever in their global strategy.
March saw some other positive acquisition news for Irish companies - Irish betting software company Banach was bought by Aussie outfit Pointsbet, healthtech start-up Avail Support was acquired by Centralreach, Lua was brought in by Beekeeper, and finally, Poppulo is set to merge with Four Winds Interactive.
Micro-mobility on the move 🛵🚲 - March saw various announcements and conversations on micro-mobility as companies increasingly look to Ireland. This can be seen as part of a wider trend towards 15-minute cities and the rise of remote work. These companies are waiting on a change in regulation in Ireland to roll out but seem to be making moves and jostling for position as it now seems a matter of when rather than if. Companies looking to take a chunk of this emerging market are mixed across indigenous and multinationals and include Bolt, Bird, Bleeper, Lime, Zeus, Tier, and Dott. The space is popular enough to even have gained the attention of rugby royalty (In BOD we trust) through Zipp and most recently Luna.
Girl Power 👩🏻💻 - International Women’s Day was celebrated on March 8th and to coincide with this, TechIreland released their Female Founder Funding review which revealed over 50 female-founded companies raised more than €100 million in total for the first time across 2020. This increase is bucking the global trend and the wider issues of funding for female founders. While this was certainly a good news story celebrated in the media there is still much more to do in promoting women in STEM especially in the wake of the pandemic. Ireland is home to some amazing women in technology and I hope these can inspire the next generation to even greater success.
Drone delivery 🛩️ - A poster child of Irish start-ups Manna Aero, a drone delivery company established by Bobby Healy and being built in Ireland and Wales announced a new partnership with Samsung to trial delivering their phones. While limited to their testing ground of Oranmore in Galway it is the next step in proving the viability of the company and moving beyond food delivery and medicines. Having applied for the EU’s light UAS operator certificate the company has massive ambitions to be the vanguard of a move to drone delivery as a service across the globe. If I was buying a new smartphone I am not sure I would be taking on the weather conditions out West but it is an exciting innovation and a sign of the potential for this company. They are currently looking for new testing sites so if you want to be able to get a chipper by drone then let them know.
A Blockchain and Crypto Hub 💱₿ - While I spent the month trying to understand NFTs and DAOs, Ireland’s cryptocurrency and blockchain ecosystem continued to grow. Crypto.com announced the establishment of an Irish operation. Meanwhile, Wirex announced they would be establishing an EU HQ here. As Brexit continues to take hold is this a sign of things to come that sees Ireland establish itself as a Fintech, Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency hotspot. It seems like it is only a matter of time for Blockchain tech to really enter mainstream conversations but maybe someone has cracked how to get Irish attention already - combine Bono and whiskey with NFTs.
Funding for Growth 🌱 - In March, money continued to be made available to companies as Enterprise Ireland announced their latest call for their Seed and Venture Capital Scheme and continued to live up to their “top VC investor” status. Elsewhere, we saw Element Finance and SVG look to the Irish market for new investments and Irish fintech and companies as a whole have strong support through 2020. There is a worry about lower funding for early-stage companies but in my view, this is great news given the year we have all been through and shows the level of innovation and excellence in this country.
Founder Friendly 📑 - Building on their relaunch the NDRC announced a new accelerator with new terms inspired by Y Combinator. The accelerator offers a €100,000 investment using SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and ‘founder friendly’ terms. This has been welcomed by the wider community but it will be a while before we see if this new accelerator can help to create the conditions for the next Stripe to be built fully at home.
EU flexes muscles 🇪🇺💶 - Ireland looks set to be impacted as the EU increasingly considers its members’ position and role in the global technology ecosystem. March saw the EU launch Horizon EU which includes a €95 billion funding programme to help the bloc build its “value from science”. (Excitingly in my opinion, some of this money will be specifically dedicated to emerging tech and green tech solutions) This is accompanied by other macro trends in the bloc as digital sovereignty increasingly gains attention, plans for a digital decade are formed and the EU looks to level the playing field for indigenous startups. It will be interesting to see how this plays for Ireland given our tight relationship and reliance on US FDI. I expect there may be some conflicts to come but for the moment it is best to watch with interest.
Jobs 💻 - Finally, March was an excellent month for job announcements as alongside the Stripe news we saw big announcements from Intel, Intercom, HPE, and Workday. Alongside these global companies, we saw great news from smaller companies in Dublin like Foodmarble and Enterpryze as well as around the country in Sligo, Northern Ireland, Kilkenny, Louth, and Donegal. In my personal experience, there has certainly been an uptick in recruitment activities as companies begin to emerge from a COVID holding pattern. Maybe it’s time to update your LinkedIn?
Thanks for taking the time to read this newsletter. I hope you all enjoyed it!
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Cheers,
Seán