Gary Leyden

As investment flows continue to drive growth in tech and innovation, startups in Ireland 🇮🇪 and the UK are seizing the opportunity to scale, innovate, and disrupt. From AI-driven diagnostic solutions to platforms reimagining corporate interactions and offshore energy innovations, the startup ecosystem is humming with fresh funding and new milestones. Here are some standout deals this month that signal the ongoing strength and potential of startup and scale-up ventures. Needi Investment: £1.4 million Investors: Clarendon Fund Managers, Techstart Ventures LLP Ventures, several angels What they do: needi is a Manchester-based startup redefining corporate gifting by connecting businesses to unique, sustainable products from local suppliers. Founders: Louise Doyle and Steph Scholes Ooodles Investment: €2.5m Investors: āltitude, UK family office Traditum Private Investment Office What they do: Ooodles offers tech leasing solutions to SMEs, allowing them to access the latest tech equipment without significant upfront costs. This latest round is to help expand flexible tech leasing for Irish SMEs Founders: Leonardo Poggiali and Kannan Reghu Gazelle Wind Power Limited Investment: €11.4 million Investors: Indico Capital Partners, DST Global, August One, Wah Kwong, and E2IN2, among others. What they do: Irish based Gazelle Wind Power is developing next-generation floating offshore wind platform technology. Founder: Jon Salazar iFAST Diagnostics Investment: £5 million Investors: KHP Ventures, QantX, UKI2S (managed by Future Planet Capital), Kadmos Capital Ltd, EInk, Raw Ventures, OKG Capital, and angels What they do: iFast Diagnostics has developed technology to determine the most effective antibiotics for different bacteria. Founders: Toby King, Hywel Morgan and @Daniel Spencer RESEARCH GRID Investment: £5 million Investors: Fuel Ventures 🚀, Arve Capital, Ada Ventures, Morgan Stanley Inclusive Venture Lab, Arāya Ventures, Ascension, Plug and Play Ventures, and Atomico What they do: Research Grid is an AI/health tech company focused on improving research processes. Founder: Dr Amber Michelle Hill Paloma Health Investment: €2.3 million Investors: TriplePoint Capital and James Allgrove Company: Paloma Health aims to reduce the long waiting times for children's autism assessments by utilising technology and artificial intelligence to cut the diagnosis time from over two years to just four weeks. Founder: Guillaume ("G") Cohen-Skalli

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🚀 Investment Opportunity Alert! 🚀 Mashup Ireland AB, a Nasdaq-listed company specializing in investing in Irish SMEs and value-added property projects, is launching an exciting loan offer for sophisticated investors. Here’s the Deal: 💰 15% Interest Rate for 1 Year Loan ➖Short-term loan with interest paid at the end of one year. ➖Low Leverage, Low Risk: With a current loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of only 2.8%, this opportunity offers attractive returns with low risk. ➖Asset-Backed Portfolio: Diversified investments valued at €11.8 million across sectors including Recycling, Mental Health, Food Production, and Property.   Why Invest in Mashup Ireland? ✔️ Support Irish Entrepreneurs: Your investment will directly contribute to the growth of Irish SMEs. ✔️ Stability of a Listed Company: As a publicly traded company, we ensure transparency and rigorous governance standards. ✔️ Flexible Loan Amounts: Invest between €20,000 and €100,000 to suit your preferences. We’re raising €250,000 to seize new opportunities and expand our portfolio. The loan will be repaid out of an equity raise in 2025. Contact us to explore this unique opportunity to support Irish SMEs while earning attractive returns. 📞 Contact: Andy Byrne (CEO): [email protected] Jamie Walsh (CFO): [email protected] 🌐 Learn more about this opportunity and our portfolio at https://lnkd.in/edb5ai2j #InvestmentOpportunity #SMEInvestment #NasdaqListed #HighReturns #IrishBusinessGrowth #MashupIreland Disclaimer: This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any securities or investment products. Investments are subject to risks, including the potential loss of principal. Jamie Walsh Mary Dunphy Finbarr Hutcheson Fearghal Power Gina Galligan John O Connor Jack Starling Danny Buckley Jordan Casey Paul McCann Shane O'Connell Mark Cummings Declan Bradshaw Tony Kirwan Peter Benson Peter Bennett Simon Deeny Shane Taggart Brian Tuite Ken Rooney CPA Anand Haridh Vincent Oratore Garrett Curran Terry Devitt Ciaran Killalea Paschal Naylor Conor O' Sullivan David Lyons David Irving David Dalton Anthony Sweetman Mark Battelle Morgan Donnellan Simon MacKinnon keith cairns Feargal O'Reilly, FCCA Niall Mimnagh Paul M. Declan Dolan Akshay K. Con Lehane William Linnane

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A Guide to Venture Capital: Raising capital for your business? Dive into this comprehensive guide crafted by the Irish Venture Capital Association in collaboration with EquityNetwork. This resource is packed with actionable insights on: 1️⃣ Attracting Venture Capitalists: Learn how to present your startup as an irresistible investment opportunity. 2️⃣ Crafting an Investor-Ready Business Plan: Develop a plan that highlights your vision, market opportunity, and revenue model. 3️⃣ Benefits of Private Equity Financing: Understand how private equity can accelerate growth and open new opportunities. 4️⃣ Navigating Startup Growth Stages: From seed to exit, gain clarity on funding needs at every stage. 5️⃣ Key Investor Questions: Be prepared to answer critical questions about your product, market, and growth strategy. Whether you’re gearing up for your seed round or looking to scale, this guide equips you with the tools to position your startup for success in the competitive world of venture capital. #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #InvestorRelations PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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Numbers & insights from a deep tech venture studio that launched 11 companies (all are active) in the last 7 years, reaching £85M valuation across the portfolio: 1. Post Urban, initially bootstrapped by Luke Robinson, an academic with a PhD in physics from Cambridge, now operates with external funding from a UK-based fund. 2. Launched 5 companies during the first 5 years and 6 companies during the last 2 years. 3. All 11 completed pre-seed rounds; 1 of them got Series A, 2 of them are approaching their Series A. 4. The startups have collectively raised ~£25M in venture capital, in addition to receiving grants. The total valuation of the 11 companies is ~£85M, half of which have not yet undergone subsequent funding rounds. 5. Initial equity splits: the venture builder 20%, CEOs of startups 35% (vests over 4 years), CTOs – 20-25%, employees 10-15%. 6. The initial valuation of startups was £2 million, with £300K invested by the venture builder. The last 2 startups were at £3.5-4M initial valuation. 7. Building deep tech ventures requires significantly higher initial funding because these projects need more time to develop demonstrable products. Two portfolio companies hit £1M in ARR. 8. The venture builder has increased the capital for the last 2 startups to ensure they reach meaningful milestones. The CEOs of the startups were able to secure additional funding through their networks, £350K and £450K, respectively. 9. The deep tech investor pool is smaller than that for sectors like SaaS, which requires a stronger proof of concept and market readiness to attract funding. 10. 3-4 times, potential customers became investors in Post Urban Ventures. This is a great approach because it secures investment and validates the concept by gauging whether these potential customers truly believe in the solution and its market necessity. 11. They don't start with a technology or an idea; instead, they integrate insights about global problems and, by actively engaging with advisory boards, founders, and industry experts, identify pain points and align them with technological solutions. 12. They do not bring universities in as co-founders but source scientists or professors to contribute to research and development. This involves leveraging academic expertise to support the technical aspects of startup projects until a prototype is developed. 13. The studio maintains strong connections with major academic institutions, including Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College, and UCL, supporting its deep tech focus and facilitating access to new technologies and potential founders. 14. Areas of focus in deep tech: AI (Knowledge Graphs, NLP, DNNs, Computer Vision, Edge AI, Active Learning), Quantum Technologies, Biotech, AgTech, Enterprise SaaS. Watch the full interview to gain insights into the portfolio companies, handling IP collaborations with universities, key challenges, and team construction: https://lnkd.in/dCi7fZ7G

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Thanks Moshin Raza and EU Tech Chamber (EUTECH) for the invitation to speak at a panel on the topic of digital transformation of wealth management and Investment. Really enjoyed learning from the insights of the other panelists ▫️Aladár Tepelea and Gregor Boltar, so here's a brief summary for those who missed out: 1. WealthTech is making financial services more efficient, accessible, personalized, transparent, and cost-effective. 2. With the technological advancements, it's still our responsibility to educate ourselves and our children about basic finance. 3. The value of money exists because of trust, so people will always stay at the core of wealth management, with technology as an enabler. Follow & Connect 🤝

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This week, Phuong Ireland and I dive into one of the most crucial yet often perplexing aspects of startup formation: cap table construction and equity distribution. If you're setting up a startup or restructuring your cap table, this conversation is a must-listen. We discuss the essentials of how to navigate structuring equity so that the cap table aligns with industry norms, aiming to attract investors while motivating founders and early employees. From understanding equity splits among co-founders to planning an option pool for future hires, we cover actionable insights that can help founders avoid common pitfalls. This is a tough topic for new entrepreneurs. Hopefully this episode can help folks build a balanced and adaptable ownership structure that supports growth and long-term success. https://lnkd.in/emWEer9B

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The startup scene in Dublin is 🔥 over at Dogpatch Labs 🇮🇪 Yesterday I enjoyed a great conversation with Menno Axt about how early stage founders should approach GTM, security and compliance. It was a blast sharing so much of what we’ve seen at 20SALES and Vanta, supporting some of the best founders out there in growing their businesses. One of the biggest takeaways for me is always that founders face so many of the same challenges driving revenue, regardless of the type of product. There is more in common than one might expect.

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Great to see SIS Ventures make this list by TechRound https://lnkd.in/eDtRbggM A bit more about what we look for below. If you're a founder and these hit the mark 👇 then please get in touch Investment targets SIS Ventures is focused on high-impact, high-growth potential businesses our investee companies are innovation-led, often spun out of Scotland’s leading university innovation programmes. Portfolio companies are also carefully selected for their commitment to developing their environmental, equality and diversity, social impact and governance practices. SIS Ventures seeks to provide equity investment to: ✔ High growth potential with a global scale and intent to provide significant impact ✔ Focus on social and/or environmental impact, aligning with impact themes / at least one of the UN SDGs ✔ Product or service backed by defensible technology or proprietary know-how ✔ EIS or SEIS qualifying ✔ Low capital-intensive businesses ✔ Sector agnostic, but historically invested across Life Sciences, MedTech, Climate Tech, Circular Economy, Biotech ✔ Pre-seed – Series A ✔ Headquartered in Scotland

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The UK Venture Capital Financial Returns 2024 report provides a comprehensive assessment of the performance of UK VC funds since 2002. The report draws together data directly sourced from fund managers, from the British Business Bank’s equity programmes, as well as from commercial data providers PitchBook and Preqin. The report contains the following chapters: 🔹 Chapter 1 provides an overview of UK VC financial returns in comparison to the US, and the rest of Europe (ROE), and breaks this down into different vintage year cohorts. 🔹 Chapter 2 explores global VC fund performance in the life sciences and green technology sectors, including how industry returns have evolved over the past twenty years. 🔹 Chapter 3 assesses the performance of VC funds the Bank has invested in through its Enterprise Capital Funds (ECF) programme and through British Patient Capital (BPC). 🔹 Chapter 4 provides an overview of current VC market conditions, covering fund managers’ perspectives on fundraising, competition, valuations and exit opportunities using the results from our UK fund manager survey.

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Industry experts call for tailored AI rules in post-election UK

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🌱 Looking to Connect with Leading VCs and Early-Stage Investors? 🌱 At Virtualnonexecs, we don;t only work with PE firms - we are also proud to be working with some of the UK’s most active early-stage investors to help them find the top board advisors and chairs who can drive impact. If you're a non-executive or chair looking to connect with the heart of the startup ecosystem, take note of the names below. Here are 10 of the UK's most active early-stage investors and the incredible numbers that back them: 1. Octopus Ventures - Backed 100+ startups, with a portfolio value of over £1.3 billion. 2. Seedcamp - Over 400 startups funded, including unicorns like Revolut and TransferWise 3. LocalGlobe - Invested in 300+ startups across deep tech and fintech. 4. Playfair - Early backer of companies like Stripe and Anduril. 5. Passion Capital - Early investor in Monzo Bank, managing £100M+ in assets. 6. Ascension - Over 100 startups backed with a focus on social impact and fintech. 7. Frontline Ventures - Backed 80+ startups across Europe with a key focus on B2B. 8. MMC Ventures - £500M+ under management, supporting 60+ innovative growth companies. 9. Balderton Capital - Invested in 220+ startups with notable exits like THG. 10. Entrepreneur First - 500+ startups built, including companies now worth over $10 billion collectively. ✅ To join Virtualnonexecs: https://lnkd.in/eXBj687 ✅ If you are a VC or company looking to hire: https://lnkd.in/d3na7CEC #NonExecutiveDirectors #Chairs #VentureCapital #Startups #Virtualnonexecs #BoardRoles #Leadership #BusinessGrowth

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🚀 Breaking News: Unicorn Insuretech Wefox faces insolvency 🚀 Wefox, the Insuretech, is undergoing a significant restructuring process. For the time being existing investors are rumored to inject an additional €20 million into the company. Regulators are demanding increased equity, and rising credit costs are adding to the pressures. In response to market conditions, Wefox is scaling back certain operations and executing strategic sales to refocus its efforts. The startup which has nearly 3m customers and was valued at $4.5bn (£3.6bn) less than two years ago, is reported to have informed shareholders its holding company faces being insolvent by the summer. Sources in comments. #Wefox #Startups #Restructuring #BusinessNews #MarketUpdates #Insuretech

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On further reflection on my previous post (link below) about AI being like electricity, not in the fear mongering sense but in the Nicholas Carr commoditization sense, this is only true in the same way that the Efficient Market hypothesis is true… While the stock market is generally efficient, through brilliance, skill, or specialized domain knowledge, people like Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, and Edward Thorpe, have been able to consistently find inefficiencies and generate wealth. Especially now when there is so much flux in the whole AI landscape one can find great opportunities. We are experimenting with a few ideas in our field of  CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) When I interviewed the legendary angel investor Gil Penchina (invested in 7 unicorns) for TechCrunch he told me that one of the questions he always asks startups is:  Why now? What has changed that makes this idea attractive? https://lnkd.in/dqf-aRtJ #ai #startups #ecommerce #conversionrateoptimization

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7 of the most active seed stage funds in the UK. 💸💸💸 These are the funds that have been the most recommended to me for the B2B software space. SFC Capital - An SEIS fund that typically invests at Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A. From what I could see funding is usually between £100k and £300k at pre-seed. Octopus Ventures - Typically invests up to £1m for Seed funding rounds. Ascension - Typically invests between £500K and £5m. Fuel Ventures 🚀 - Check size of £1-3M at Seed stage LocalGlobe - Seed and Series A fund. Mercia Asset Management PLC - Mercia manages a number of different funds and can invest from Pre-Seed through to Series A with ticket sizes of up to £10m. Haatch - Invests between £300 - 800K at Seed stage. If there's any other seed stage funds you'd recommend please let me know in the comments 

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Taavet Hinrikus and I made the Financial Times Due Diligence email. https://lnkd.in/ez2AuGQx One 'unintended consequence' is that if there is a 45% tax on carry and CGT (raising £40m per year, remember) it for all intents and purposes closes the door on new VCs in the UK. Especially started by teams from non-traditional backgrounds. To meet the GP commit, you need to be already part of the 'wealthy' as you cannot rely on the value you create - nearly half of it will disappear - to fund it. We have both had extremely successful startups which are few and far between. The smaller number of new VCs will therefore more likely increasingly be for people who have inherited the capital or can draw it from their already rich family. Probably not want they have in mind with this policy.

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🚀 Busy founders looking for funding, I'd love to help you boost your odds! Having worked with investors since 2015 from a merger and due diligence perspective, I've noticed some patterns. 📊 After talking to fellow DD consultants last year and examining repeated patterns across many projects, I recognised there are common areas that founders are penalised for—areas they could address well before negotiations. 💡 The problem is that you're too busy, and many people don't know what good looks like. That's why we're running a 5-day challenge in July. We'll teach you about the common, usually quite simple, problems that will come up during due diligence. 🏢 My view is that a firm worth selling is worth keeping, which involves bringing your firm up to 'investor grade'. 🎯 This challenge is for those seeking Seed and Series A funding. For more information, check out the link below. 📣 And apologies if I get a bit more vocal promoting this over the next few weeks. Details here: https://lnkd.in/erAv8TDF Emjoi'd out. Hutton

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How To Partner With Big Business When You’re A Startup! There are many reasons why startups look to partner with large organisations, not least, access to a larger market, a steady revenue stream, and corporate expertise. Large companies also stand to gain from the innovative solutions often hatched in the startup world, as well as a brand new range of products and services to boost engagement with new and existing customers. Pitching a proposition to a huge corporate organisation can feel daunting, but success comes from offering corporates something they don’t already have that brings value to their business. #startup #partnership https://lnkd.in/dtWDSy6E

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