The Most Exciting Startups in Dublin for 2025

The capital of Ireland’s acceptance of Big Tech is influencing its startups, which are developing improved tools for IT teams, AI content moderation solutions, and RNA screening for cattle herds.

Dublin has attracted the European headquarters of numerous major US tech firms, such as Google, Meta, LinkedIn, and Microsoft, due to its low corporate tax rates and government incentives; all these companies have offices in the city’s Silicon Docks.

“The large US corporations functioned separately from the startup ecosystem for several years,” says Will Prendergast, a partner at Frontline Ventures. “However, over the last five years, American tech firms have developed product and engineering roles locally, and that expertise is beginning to emerge, fueling the establishment of startups.”

Government backing through Enterprise Ireland’s Pre-Seed Start Fund, aimed at speeding up early-stage startups, along with hubs like Dogpatch Labs, is fostering this influx of new talent. “Ireland faces a capital challenge,” states Luke Mackey, cofounder of the employee benefits startup Kota. “There are many methods to gather €1 million, but few options exist to acquire €10 million.”

Openvolt

Openvolt is developing an API that gathers carbon emissions data throughout Europe for energy transition firms. It’s not by chance that the goal is to create an API that is as easy to use as Stripe’s payment platform—Don O’Leary, the CTO of Openvolt, previously served as Stripe’s head of customer engineering for EMEA. He co-founded the company in 2023 alongside CEO Dave Curran. Openvolt’s initial move involved obtaining real-time data from 90 million smart meters throughout the continent, with gas usage and the carbon intensity of electricity supplies to come next. The firm secured a pre-seed amount of €1.5 million ($1.6 million) with Cavalry Ventures at the helm. Its initial client is Helios Energy, which plans to utilize Openvolt data for auditing its client’s energy consumption. openvolt.com

Tines

Tines is an automation platform designed for IT and security teams to automate any manual task through a selection of eight standard commands, including “HTTP request,” which facilitates the sending or receiving of data from an external system. Tines focuses on straightforward tasks that consume a significant amount of teams’ time—like user onboarding or managing minor security incidents—to alleviate “alert fatigue.” Initiated with an $11 million (€10.2 million) Series A funding round spearheaded by Accel, Index Ventures, and Blossom Capital in December 2019, the firm has accumulated a total of $146.2 million (€130.6 million). Employing 200 people throughout the USA, Ireland, Australia, and Canada, revenue increased by 200 percent from November 2022 to May 2024. Clients comprise Databricks, Mars Inc., and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. tines.com

Marker Video

Marker Video is a platform for user-generated branded content that offers product review videos created by everyday individuals to brands and retailers for a set fee. Started as Marker Content in 2022 with €600,000 ($670,000) from Enterprise Ireland, founder Greta Dunne transitioned from blogging to video in February 2023. “The former copywriter shares, ‘I encountered the marketing head at Estée Lauder who had recently shifted focus from influencers to regular individuals after their data indicated that the more genuine the content, the stronger the engagement.’” Guests can scan a QR code found in hotels or on items to submit video reviews that are tagged and organized. The videos are priced from €100 to €200 ($111 to $223). Brands are granted unrestricted usage while creators obtain 50 percent of the payment. A covert launch in April, along with partnerships with Unilever and Acer Hotels, resulted in 5,000 creators joining the platform each month. A subsequent round secured €200,000 ($223,000) from Enterprise Ireland and angel investors like Brian Caulfield, along with David Byrne from Digital Irish, to finance a complete launch in the autumn. markervideo.com

CaliberAI

CaliberAI is a platform for content moderation powered by AI that identifies harmful and defamatory material. Functioning like a “spell checker for defamation and hate speech,” it alerts news outlets and social media users when they approach the boundary. It was established by a father and son duo—Conor Brady served as editor-in-chief of The Irish Times while Neil Brady worked as a journalist for The Guardian. In 2019, the company was launched with an Enterprise Ireland grant of €300,000 ($335,000), which was succeeded by €850,000 ($950,000) in pre-seed funding. The team trains CaliberAI and additional large language models using specially crafted data sets—a scarcity of defamatory content for training purposes led the company to develop its own. Clients consist of Mediahuis, the Daily Mail, Meta, and various law firms engaged in AI. “Misinformation and hate speech are undermining democracy as news outlets struggle,” Neil explains. “Companies that develop generative AI chatbots will not receive the same legal protections as users of social media.” caliberai.net

EdgeTier

“Customer support is flawed—people dislike battling with a chatbot just to reach a human who can address their issue,” states Shane Lynn, CEO and cofounder of EdgeTier. The company’s AI observes customer interactions with call centers, identifies problems, and provides training for humans based on the conversations it has examined. In 2019, Lynn, CCO Bart Lehane, and CTO Ciarán Tobin initiated with a seed round and have subsequently secured €7.5 million ($8.3 million) across two funding rounds led by Smedvig Capital and ACT VC. The firm currently operates in over 20 nations throughout Europe and the Americas, collaborating with Abercrombie & Fitch, Ryanair, the TUI travel agency, Electric Ireland, and Tipico. edgetier.com

Noloco

Noloco is a platform that allows any business to create an app using a point-and-click interface, eliminating the necessity for programming or software expertise. Founder Darragh McKay characterizes it as the Webflow for business applications. As a software engineer, McKay recognized “how limited the tools I possessed were for non-software engineers and how difficult they were to operate.” Noloco offers a variety of templates for typical HR, project management, and inventory applications, along with a blank canvas that allows users to drag and drop the tasks required for their applications. Established in the summer of 2021, seed funding in February 2022 secured $1.4 million (€1.8 million), spearheaded by Unpopular Ventures and Accel Angels, with the app builder debuting in July 2022. Clients are small and medium-sized enterprises—mainly construction firms, marketing agencies, accountants, and legal professionals. Offered through a subscription model, revenue has increased by 140 percent over the last year. noloco.io

Inspeq ai

Inspeq.ai serves as an assessment platform designed for product teams developing AI applications. It oversees app development, particularly LLMs, to ensure the results are accurate, consistent, free of hallucinations, and devoid of biases and negative tones. The concept for the company originated with CEO Apoorva Kumar and CTO Ramanujam MV, who were previously product managers at Microsoft and Meta, respectively. The duo discovered that the LLMs they utilized frequently “hallucinated,” generating grammatically correct yet factually incorrect data. Following the development of a proof of concept at the Founders Talent Accelerator in late 2023, which decreased hallucination problems by 80 percent, they secured €1.1 million ($1.2 million) in a funding round led by Sure Valley Ventures in May 2024 to expand their operations in Ireland, London, and India. inspeq.ai

Barespace.io

Barespace CEO and cofounder Conor Moules was employed at a neighborhood hair salon during his teenage years. Later, when he became part of the food delivery app Bamboo in his twenties, he was astonished to discover that the average salon purchases exceeded the average food delivery requests by over 10 times. He established Barespace to assist barbershops, salons, and spa businesses in automating their management through a complete SaaS platform that integrates appointment scheduling, client history, and marketing, tailored for non-technical personnel. Established in March 2022 by Moules and COO Glenn McGoldrick, it secured a €1.5 million ($1.6 million) pre-seed funding round in August 2024 from investors including Brian Caulfield, chair of Scale Ireland; Barry Napier, CEO of Cubic Telecom; and Rick Kelley, the previous managing director of Meta Ireland. Barespace has handled over €10 million ($11.1 million) in transactions during its initial 20 months since launching, expanding the business by over 300 percent. barespace.io

Gazelle Wind Power

Gazelle Wind Power is constructing floating wind turbine platforms positioned far out in the open ocean. Ninety-nine percent of wind farms are anchored to the ocean floor at relatively shallow depths. Nonetheless, more reliable and intense winds occur over significantly deeper water. Antonio García—engineer of racing yachts and the uncle of Gazelle founder Jon Salazar—created a versatile floating platform with anchor lines connected to the ocean floor, along with a counterbalance that stabilizes the platform in turbulent waters. The company has secured $11.3 million (€10.1 million) in equity so far, spearheaded by Katapult Group, and is approaching a series A funding round. Salazar’s upcoming objective is to lower the expenses to achieve the “Henry Ford moment”—an affordable, scalable system that is easy to build, set up, and use. gazellewindpower.com

Antler Bio

Antler Bio’s EpiHerd screening tool analyzes RNA found in dairy cow blood—the mechanism through which genes are expressed in their surroundings. “Farmers consider breeding for ideal genetics,” cofounder Maria Jensen clarifies, “and then question why the animal isn’t performing.” EpiHerd uncovers how environmental factors like disease, diet, farm infrastructure, or stress influence gene expression and suggests tailored actions for specific farms and animals while tracking the effects of these changes. Founded in November 2020 by Jensen and Nathalie Conte, the company secured over €1 million ($1.1 million) in funding, with the Nest family office leading the investment. The initial farm to pay in November 2023 boosted milk output by 30 percent. Antler anticipates reaching 173 farms by the conclusion of 2024. The proposal involves verifying EpiHerd to detect endemic illnesses, including bovine TB. antlerbio.com