💡Some light in the dark
Issue 4 - Feb 13th-26th: Exciting start-ups, funding, and what founders want
Welcome to Issue 4 of 2023 for “The Land of Saints, Scholars, and Techies”
A new year brings new beginnings and you will notice some changes in this newsletter. I hope you continue to enjoy and get value from it and may share it with your network. Below are some stories you may have missed in the last couple of weeks.
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Top Stories
Top start-ups 🌟
We got a nice profile of some of the most promising upcoming Irish companies. There is a strong representation of security and regulatory companies with Evervault, Vaultree, and Valid8me as well as sustainability-orientated companies like Envetec and Gazelle Wind aligning with some of the macro focus areas globally for 2023. These companies are just a drop in the ocean of the Irish start-up ecosystem and while we have seen some of the recent media favourites fade in recent times I hope there can be a number of Irish companies achieve massive success this year.
Start-up worries 🏦
Scale Ireland’s annual survey revealed access to finance as the main challenge for start-ups in Ireland. Recruitment and retention of staff was cited as the biggest issue by 17% of participants (25% in 2021). The cost of doing business was identified as the biggest challenge by 12% in 2022, compared to 8.7% in 2021. Other issues included tax and regulation burdens and a lack of expert advice and support. It is challenging to make a start-up a success and so it is imperative that governments look to support them and streamline the supports as much as possible as time is the resource founders are most unwilling to give up.
Layoff tracker 📉
The layoffs continued in the last couple of weeks. This time seeing the likes of LinkedIn, Twilio, Zalando, and Docusign announce new cuts. Additionally, we learned how impacts would impact Irish staff in Hubspot and Google showing that while Ireland is more insulated than other locations it is not immune. For those, with a Currency subscription this was an interesting and accessible review of what is happening.
Funding & Exits
Newswhip - Debt Facility - €13m - Link
Pacsana - Not stated - €1m - Link
Topfloor - Acquired - €6.2m - Link
Overhaul - Series B - €39m - Link
Siren - Not stated - €12m - Link
Imvizar - Seed - €800k - Link
Conversation Starter:
Artifact - Tiktok for Text:
The Instagram co-founders have launched a new app called Artifact. There is an excellent breakdown from Platformer and as described there - “The app opens to a feed of popular articles chosen from a curated list of publishers ranging from leading news organizations like the New York Times to small-scale blogs about niche topics. Tap on articles that interest you and Artifact will serve you similar posts and stories in the future, just as watching videos on TikTok’s For You page tunes its algorithm over time.” For me, Artifact sounds like a better use of transformers to model behaviour and serve people similar content than Tiktok or Instagram reels though I have seen many news aggregators come and go before. Equally, one could be worried about creating an echo chamber where your news and information consumption becomes very closed. Will you be downloading it?
Shameless Plug - TA.guru
My own company got its own media profile in the last couple of weeks so time for a shameless plug. Feel free to check out the post from Silicon Republic and if you want to chat to me just drop a mail.
Job Announcements
If you have any feedback on the newsletter please reach out in comments, email, or chat as I am only at the start of this journey and all ears on how I can improve.
My Story and The Land’s Background
👋 To quickly introduce myself to anyone new … My name is Seán. I am in my late 20s, 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 ecosystem is dynamic 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.
Thank you for taking some time out of your busy lives to read!
💬 Contact me: thelandsst@gmail.com
🤝 Want to be friends then connect with me on LinkedIn
Cheers,
Seán