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In celebration of St Patrick’s Day tomorrow (17 March), SiliconRepublic.com has highlighted seven innovative Irish start-ups celebrating global success.
Ireland has a rich history of making a significant impact internationally. At no time is this clearer than on St Patrick’s Day.
From a widespread diaspora to a significant presence in the arts and entertainment industry, this small island with a population of 7m maintains a strong presence on the global stage.
One area that continues to experience significant influence from Ireland is the world of business and tech, as seen in the numerous start-ups and companies from Ireland that are expanding internationally.
In celebration of this, and with St Patrick’s Day tomorrow (17 March), we at SiliconRepublic.com have compiled a list of 7 Irish start-ups that have had (and continue to have) global success.
Sonrai Analytics
Northern Irish health-tech Sonrai Analytics applies AI and deep learning to develop bespoke applications and interfaces to enable health, biotech and pharma organisations to filter and transform datasets in real time. It also offers data visualisation and predictive analytics on workflows to accelerate organisational processes and improve performance.
Since its inception in Belfast in 2018, Sonrai Analytics has experienced significant success globally, particularly in the US and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Last November, the health-tech secured investment from New York-based venture firm Eckuity to accelerate its business in the US. According to co-founder Darragh McArt, the investment is set to help the company to further strengthen its commercial aspirations and diversify its market segments.
Just last month, it was announced that Sonrai Analytics was entering into a partnership with a UAE-based company to expand its AI technologies to the region. As part of the partnership, Sonrai’s AI technology and expertise will be used by oncologists, hospitals and other medical providers in the UAE for enhanced cancer detection and biomarker discovery.
Akara
Akara is a Dublin-based start-up that is developing robots and AI for the healthcare sector. The Irish start-up spun out of Trinity College in 2019, beginning its first endeavour into healthcare with a social care robot called Stevie, which is designed to interact with older people and help in nursing homes and retirement communities.
In November of last year, Akara partnered with a hospital in Estonia to help with disinfection using the company’s platform for helping workers manage cleaning tasks, which according to Akara helps eliminate paperwork, saves time and improves transparency.
Provizio
Limerick-headquartered Provizio is a start-up that has developed a five-dimensional perception system called 5D Perception that it claims can continually see, track and interpret vehicular behaviour and identify roadway elements – even during bad weather conditions.
The company, which was founded in 2019, recently showcased its car safety technology at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) conference in Las Vegas, followed by an announcement of plans to make the tech available to drivers by 2025.
The company has also teamed up with Swedish micromobility company Voi to trial e-scooter safety tech.
Viso
Founded in 2021, Irish cybersecurity provider Viso offers virtual cybersecurity officer services for SMEs that can’t create their own full-time security team. The company also offers SMEs specific services such as cyber threat analysis, internal audits for ISO27001 certification, policy development and technology assessment.
The Dublin-based start-up recently announced an expansion of its operations to the UK, with plans to expand to new markets and grow existing relationships with clients in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US.
CropSafe
CropSafe is a Northern Ireland-based company which developed a platform that lets farmers create alerts and use real-time modules to monitor various topics that are important to their farm, from weather to crop health. Conditions can be monitored remotely through CropSafe’s network of global weather stations and orbital satellites. Users can access data from the web or set up alerts from the CropSafe app.
Founded in 2019 by John McElhone and Micheál McLaughlin while they were still in secondary school, the start-up has raised $3m in seed funding to expand in the last year and continues to grow. Last month, it was announced that McElhone is one of 20 entrepreneurs who have joined the prestigious Thiel Fellowship class of 2023. The international fellowship programme, which lasts for two years, encourages talented young people with big ideas to start companies instead of attending college.
ReaDI-Watch
Irish start-up ReaDI-Watch, which was founded by father and son Gerry and Dave Byrne, developed a digital platform for companies to manage their RD&I (research, development and innovation) projects. The company’s software is designed for businesses of all sizes, incorporating ISO-aligned strategic tools to help establish their RD&I plans.
This week, the company announced its official launch in Canada, which CEO Dave Byrne says has an RD&I landscape with “significant similarities to Ireland and the UK”. Alongside its Canadian expansion, the NovaUCD-based company has identified the UK and US as other target markets, due to the high level of RD&I investment.
Nua Surgical
Last but not certainly not least is Galway-based Nua Surgical, a medtech start-up whose surgical solutions aim to make C-sections – one of the world’s most common surgeries – safer and easier.
The company, which recently featured in SiliconRepublic.com’s list of start-ups to watch out for this year, has built a SteriCision C-section retractor, which has been designed so that obstetricians and their assistants can gain hands-free unobstructed access to the uterus during surgery.
In January, it was revealed that Nua Surgical is the only non-US company to be selected for a prestigious health-tech accelerator in Texas. The medtech is one of eight companies selected for the Texas Medical Centre Innovation’s HealthTech accelerator, a six-month programme beginning in spring that supports digital health and medical device start-ups by bringing them together at the TMC Innovation Factory in Houston every year and connecting them with experts from different fields.
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