Venture capital investment in Ireland remained stable last year and picked up in the final quarter despite the challenging funding environment, and there are signs of confidence returing in 2025.
According to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse report, VC investment picked up in Q4, with 29 deals closing in the quarter worth $255.16 million, compared to 26 deals worth $174.76 million for the same period in 2023.
Despite the strong performance in Q4, total VC investment in Irish companies for the year reached $627.75 million across 98 deals, which was an 18% decline from the $764.06 million invested across 101 deals in 2023.
The decline reflects the ongoing global funding pressures impacting startup ecosystems worldwide, according to the analysis.
The Irish market in Q4, 2024
The final quarter of 2024 ended strongly with several deals raising over $40 million each – Nuitée, a Dublin-based travel tech infrastructure startup, raised $48 million in Series A funding.
Dublin-based Nuritas, a company specialising in AI-powered peptide discovery, secured $42 million in Series C funding round.
The report shows that VC investors continued to show interest in various sectors, from mature areas like health and biotech and fintech to emerging areas like AI applications.
While interest in AI was relatively high, deals in Ireland primarily occurred at the earliest deal stages during the last three months of last year.
For example, Precision Sports Technology – who won the KPMG Global Tech Innovator Ireland final in 2024 and is a company focused on providing real-time feedback on exercise techniques – raised €700,000 in pre-seed funding and closed additional funding of €300,000 during the quarter.
Bounce Insights, a provider of an AI-powered market research platform based in Dublin, raised $4.5 million in funding.
Anna Scally, EMA Region Head of Technology, Media & Telecoms and Partner, KPMG in Ireland, said there was a strong end to 2024 and a positive start to 2025, which she said, “underscores the resilience of Ireland’s innovation ecosystem amidst global funding pressures and show confidence is returning to the market”.
“Health, biotech and fintech are still seeing interest. AI is really starting to attract interest – while the AI deal sizes are quite small here, it’s an area likely to grow significantly over the next year.
“With the first set of requirements in the EU AI Act going into effect on February 2, 2025, companies will have to factor the provisions of this Act into how they develop AI products and services to be rolled out in the European market,” she said.
January 2025 has already seen several deals announced including Fire1 raising $120 million to fund trials for device to monitor heart failure patients and XOcean securing $118 million to boost global growth.
With a positive start to 2025 already underway, Ireland’s innovation ecosystem remains well-positioned to capitalise on emerging opportunities in the year ahead, according to KPMG.
Article Source – Venture capital investments pick up in fourth quarter – RTE