Irish Startup Funding was €992 million in 2025 Irish Startup Funding More about Irish Tech News

TechIreland has released its Irish Startup Funding Review 2026 Edition, a report of startup fundraising activity in 2025. The report shows that 319 Irish startups raised a total of €992 million last year. Since the highs of 2021, annual fundraising now appears to have settled at around the €900m–€1 billion mark, with the 2025 total up just €14m compared to 2024. In terms of the number of companies raising funding, there was also a slight uptick from 2024, when 307 companies raised funding.

Early-stage activity remained notably strong – primarily attributed to Enterprise Ireland's PSSF and HPSU supports. A record 211 companies raised up to €1 million while data also reveals that there is an ongoing challenge in scaling into Series A and beyond, where momentum continues to lag.

As in previous years, a small number of large outliers skewed the total figure. The top four companies: Lets Get Checked (€150m), XOCEAN (€115m), Tines (€114m), and ProVerum (€73m), accounted for nearly half of all funding raised.

Furthermore, the majority of large rounds were concentrated in Q1, which alone accounted for €616m raised – a record high for any quarter over the last ten years. This, however, reveals a more concerning picture for the following three quarters, in which fundraising activity sharply cooled, with just €376m raised over the remainder of the year.

Deep Dive into 2025

A standout first quarter saw 69 Irish companies raise €616m, making Q1 2025 one of the strongest quarters on record for Irish startup funding. However, funding levels flattened significantly during the remaining quarters, with a combined funding total of only €376m, across 250 startups, underlying a weakened momentum after Q1.

The findings align with new figures from the Irish Venture Capital Association VenturePulse survey, published in association with William Fry, which show that Irish technology SMEs raised €221.7m in venture capital in Q1 2026, a fall of 58% compared with the same period last year. IVCA noted that the decline should be viewed in the context of an exceptionally strong Q1 2025, when Irish firms raised more than half a billion euro – a record for a first quarter.

Early Stages

Early-stage funding activity reached an all-time high in 2025, with 211 companies raising rounds below €1m. This was largely driven by Enterprise Ireland, including the 198 startups announced at the StartUp Day 2026.

Despite the strength of early-stage activity, the report identifies ongoing weakness in follow-on and scale-up funding.

The number of €1-5m rounds increased to 58

However, €5-30m rounds declined to pre-2019 levels

Large growth rounds above €30m remained relatively stable, though most were concentrated in Q1

Findings suggest that while Ireland continues to generate new startups at scale, access to follow-on capital is becoming increasingly competitive. The IVCA's Q1 2026 data suggests that these pressures are continuing into the new year. IVCA reported that funding declined across all deal-size bands except transactions of less than €1 million.

The report also notes that just four outlier deals accounted for 46% of all funding, showing the extent to which headline totals remain dependent on a small number of large rounds.

Sectoral Focus

Life Sciences retained its position as the strongest-funded sector in Ireland during 2025, accounting for more than half of total funding. Major rounds included LetsGetChecked, ProVerum, Deciphex and Perfuze. Enterprise Software and FinTech followed as the second and third strongest sectors, both performing better than in the previous two years.

Several of the year's largest rounds reflected Ireland's growing reputation in deep tech, AI, medtech, and robotics. Enterprise Ireland also notes growing momentum in AI-enabled solutions, with 99 of its supported startups in 2025 incorporating AI as a central part of their product or service.

The report also notes a sharp decline in Energy/CleanTech funding, falling from €32