We look at a selection of Irish AI, machine learning and robotics start-ups to watch in 2026.
ALPACA
A spin-out of Trinity College Dublin’s Learnovate, ALPACA has launched a digital tool that can identify children who may struggle to read before they can read print.
The ALPACA project was awarded €330,000 = under Enterprise Ireland’s Research Commercialisation Fund to support an 18-month research project between The Learnovate Centre, Marino Institute of Education and the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin.
AMPLY Discovery
AMPLY Discovery is a Queen’s University Belfast spin-out using AI to accelerate antimicrobial drug discovery.
Founded by computational biology scientists Dr Ben Thomas, Dermot Tierney and Prof Chris Creevey, AMPLY RAISED $1.75mthis year to accelerate the development of its discovery programmes through the pre-clinical stage.
Akara
Akara Robotics combines robotics and AI to automate hospital disinfection, improving hygiene and efficiency.
The Trinity College Dublin spinout has provided two UV decontamination robots to Firarage Hospital in the UK to help clean its wards and operating theatres more effectively.
The business has also revealed plans to expand into the US healthcare market and featured I the prestigious Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe rankings.
Assiduous
Assiduous was founded by experienced investment bankers Fergal Meegan and Barry Murphy and is headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin.
Its Corporate Finance Autopilot is a virtual corporate finance service-as-a-software solution, enabled by the latest AI advances, bridges the gap between business owners and capital markets. The platform supports small and medium sized companies preparing for strategic, financing and liquidity transactions with a whole of lifecycle approach.
Earlier this year the business secured €1m in funding.
Everseen
Founded in Cork in 2007, Everseen develops computer vision and artificial intelligence solutions for some of the world’s largest retailers. Led by CEO Alan O’Herlihy, Everseen employs 1,000 people globally.
The business develops AI-powered computer vision technology for the retail sector with inventory management and monitoring at self-service checkouts.
Last year, Everseen raised €65m in a Series A funding round.
Edgetier
EdgeTier was founded in 2015 by Dr. Shane Lynn, Dr. Bart Lehane, and Ciarán Tobin. With backgrounds in data science, software engineering, and machine learning, the EdgeTier co-founders shared a vision to build user-friendly, machine learning infused applications that move contact centres from data-rich but information-poor environments into a new era of efficiency and performance.
EdgeTier’s AI platform ushers in a new era of customer experience management, giving unlimited access and real-time insights on customer conversational data to support a higher quality customer experience, and in turn drive customer acquisition and retention. This task is hugely difficult as existing toolsets are complex to operate, not real-time focussed, and have no machine learning capabilities to support advanced analysis.
The company operates in more than 20 countries across Europe and the Americas, processing billions of messages through their systems for household-name clients, including Abercrombie & Fitch, LoveHolidays, Holiday Extras, CarTrawler, RyanAir, TUI Travel, Electric Ireland, Tipico, and Betclic.
Galvia AI
Headquartered in Galway, Ireland, Galvia AI specialises in unifying business data and turning it into connected intelligence that predicts, prompts, and drives smarter decisions in real time.
SMEs often struggle to make use of their data due to siloed systems and limited resources. Galvia addresses this gap with technology that has been developed for both enterprises and SMEs since its founding in 2017.
The company brings together data from across an organisation, unlocking new insights, driving improvement, and enhancing profitability.
“AI isn’t just for big-budget tech businesses. It can and should make a real, tangible difference for SMEs, which are the core of the economy,” founder John Clancy said recently as the business expanded into the UK.
Numra
Numra – formerly known as Autonifai – provides finance and accounting teams with the tech infrastructure needed to scale. Powered by AI, the integrated and intuitive solution streamlines complex financial workflows to save time and eliminate errors to reduce costs.
Founded in 2023, by David Kearney (co-founder of Peblo acquired by Wayflyer) and Conor Digan (ex-Wonder, GerYourGuide), Numra last year raised €1.5m in funding.
CeADAR
CeADAR is Ireland’s Centre for Applied AI, is headquartered at NexusUCD. Funded by Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, CeADAR has more than 90 member companies across a wide span of industries and is one of the Digital Innovation Hubs across the EU focused on delivering AI services to industry. The primary work of the Centre is on cutting-edge applied research and developing and deploying industry prototypes and solutions to companies. CeADAR is also very active in European research projects, spinouts, industry upskilling and has its own high-performance computing infrastructure.
Among examples of the work it is engaged in is a €200,000 project that proposes to use advanced tech including AI and drones to monitor Ireland’s deteriorating peatlands.
Another project conducted by Women in AI Ireland’s WaiPRACTICE programme in association with CeADAR is helping lawmakers to plan for the increasing numbers of Ukrainian refugees expected to arrive in Ireland and assess which areas will need additional resources to deal with the influx.
CitySwift
CitySwift specialises in helping local bus networks run more efficiently through the use of predictive analytics and big data. Founded by Brian O’Rourke and Alan Farrelly, CitySwift is a data analytics business on the move.
The business last year raised €7m in a funding round led by Gresham House Ventures. The round also included all existing investors following including Irelandia Investments, the Western Development Commission and ACT Venture Capital with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
This was followed by the opening of CitySwift’s first office in the UK and plans to create 50 new jobs.
Founded in 2016, CitySwift is a homegrown Galway headquartered company with a rapidly expanding team of 65 employees building an international roadmap.
A market leader working with all the leading UK operators and Public Sector Authorities, the business has consistently doubled recurring revenue over the last three years and is expanding globally into Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and South East Asia.
Oblivious AI
Oblivious AI has developed pioneering privacy enhancing technologies to help organisations keep sensitive data safe while creating insight opportunities for the data owners. Oblivious AI recently secured $1.05m in an initial seed funding round from investors that include Atlantic Bridge, Act Venture Capital, Hustle Fund and a group of angel investors. The NovaUCD-headquartered company, which was co-founded in 2020 by Robert Pisarczyk (pictured) and Jack Fitzsimons, will use the funding to build out its core team, further develop its initial product offering, and continue to work closely with its early customer base.
Protex AI
Protex AI develops an AI-powered proactive health and safety technology that enables an injury-free industrial workplace. The business was founded in Limerick in 2021 by CEO Dan Hobbs and chief technology officer Ciaran O’Mara.
Protex AI uses computer vision to identify health and safety issues and reduce injuries.
Earlier this year the business secured $36m in a series B funding round to power its US expansion.
Proveye
Proveye, headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin, was founded by Jerome O’Connell and Professor Nick Holden as spin-out from the UCD School of Biosystems and Food Engineering.
The company an Enterprise Ireland high-potential start-up has been supported to date with funding from ComOp, Enterprise Ireland and ESA.
The business was last year selected for the AWS (Amazon Web Services) Clean Energy Accelerator 4.0 programme, Generative AI Energy Lab edition.
Spellings for Me
Spellings for Me, a personalised spelling education platform originally designed for Irish primary schools, recently launched Version 2 of its system, expanding its reach to international schools across 25 countries.
The upgraded platform, developed in collaboration with technology partner TEKenable, uses artificial intelligence to provide personalised learning experiences tailored to individual student needs.
The platform now serves over 90,000 pupils annually, with significant growth following the launch of its enhanced version.
Founded by teachers Paddy and Emma Grace, who have experience in learning support and EAL instruction, Spellings for Me was inspired by the work of Brendan Colligan, an advocate of individualised spelling instruction for over 30 years.
Tines
Tines is an enterprise automation platform designed to help security and ops teams automate manual workloads. The business was founded in 2018 by Eoin Hinchy and Thomas Kinsella admittedly out of frustration with existing solutions in the market.
Earlier this year the business raised $125m for its no-code security automation platform, one of Ireland’s biggest AI-related rounds.
Zerve
Irish start-up Zerve’s platform allows teams to collaborate and share their outputs more easily. Zerve’s cloud-based, serverless technology utilises a novel, stateful architecture to create a scalable, collaborative development environment.
Zerve was co-founded in 2021, by college friends Phily Hayes (ex-LearnUpon and Deloitte) and Jason Hillary, PhD, Engineering, and later joined by Greg Michaelson, former Chief Customer Officer of DataRobot.
The company is currently one of 10 start-ups chosen from Europe to participate in Intel’s Ignite Accelerator program for deep-tech companies. Since 2019, the 148 companies that have gone through the programme have raised over €1.6bn.
Zerve recently raised $3.8m in pre-seed funding.
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