Barry Walsh looks at Irish businesses and their offerings that will help you meet your career, fitness and health goals in 2026.
For many, a New Year’s resolution marks a fresh start on personal goals like enhancing physical or mental health, boosting fitness, getting a new job, or finally starting that idea for a company.
This article spotlights more than 35 Irish-founded SMEs or brands offering digital tools and apps to help achieve these aims, from medically-led weight management and gut health trackers to therapy platforms, motion analytics, nutrition planners, hiking apps, waste-to-energy digesters, mental health support, resilience builders and more.
Everything you need to meet your 2026 goals well after the January blues are over.
Beyond BMI is a Dublin-based healthtech start-up spun out from University College Dublin’s NovaUCD in 2022. Co-founded by Dr Harriet Treacy, a medical doctor with nearly a decade of clinical experience across five healthcare systems (Ireland, UK, Australia), and product designer Peter Lumley, the company delivers a medically led digital platform for obesity management. Backed by obesity experts like Professor Carel le Roux and Professor Alex Miras, it offers personalised 12-month programmes via app, blending GLP-1 medications, nutritional therapy, doctor consultations, dietitian guidance, and behavioural coaching.
This approach targets underlying biological, psychological, and lifestyle factors, also addressing comorbidities like type 2 diabetes and hypertension, while rejecting stigma-laden diets.
Headquartered in Dublin, Beyond BMI has raised €1.5 million to date, including a €1 million Enterprise Ireland‑backed seed round in 2023. The company has been featured by RTÉ, EU‑Startups, UCD Medicine News and Image Magazine, reflecting its growing reputation in digital health innovation. Its social media channels share expert insights and success stories, with data showing steady 30% monthly growth since launch. Building on this momentum, Beyond BMI plans to expand into international markets in 2026, bringing its clinically grounded, personalised approach to obesity management to new audiences worldwide.
Bluedrop Medical is a Galway-based MedTech SME founded in 2015 by former Medtronic engineers Chris Murphy (CEO) and Simon Kiersey. The company develops innovative solutions to prevent diabetic foot ulcers and amputations, a critical need for the 25% of diabetes patients at risk. Its flagship OneStep Foot Scanner – resembling a simple bathroom scale – delivers 30-second daily home scans using over 700 sensors to capture precise temperature data and high-resolution foot images. Paired with the EveryStep cloud-based AI platform, it detects early warning signs like neuropathy hotspots, sending real-time alerts to patients and clinicians for proactive intervention. Clinical studies demonstrate up to 70% ulcer reduction, while generating longitudinal data to enhance preventive mobility care and tackle Ireland’s €40m annual costs alongside the global €30bn burden.
Bluedrop has raised over €15m, including €3.7m from the HBAN medtech syndicate (2019), a €10.5m round led by Atlantic Bridge and Western Development Fund (2023, creating 25 jobs), and EIC grants. Featured in ThinkBusiness.ie, Silicon Republic, The Irish Times, and medical journals, the company expanded in 2026 with 25 new Galway jobs, boosting staff to over 40. This growth underscores its mission to transform diabetes management through accessible, AI-driven prevention
Based in Wexford, Fettle is an online therapy platform launched in 2021, amid the pandemic, connecting users with accredited therapists for accessible mental health support via video calls. Founded by Richard Stafford and John O’Connor, with Jordan Casey as CEO, it offers personalised matching based on a questionnaire, covering anxiety, depression, trauma, grief, anger management, CBT, DBT, ACT, and couples counselling. Users select flexible plans like pay-as-you-go sessions (€85 for 50 minutes), discovery calls, or bundles such as Fettle Flexi (three monthly sessions plus peer support for €240) and Reset (nine sessions for €675, saving €90). The platform emphasises long-term therapy’s benefits, citing studies like the Helsinki Psychotherapy Study for sustained gains in functioning and social support, while including free tools like daily affirmations and progress tracking.
Fettle serves individuals and businesses with EAP services, workshops, and digital content hubs for mindfulness, fitness, and nutrition. It has raised €225,000 in pre-seed funding from investors like Fastway Couriers’ CEO Danny Hughes, followed by €500,000 from Mashup Group and GrowthBox Ventures for youth therapy expansion. It has been featured in Silicon Republic features on its tech-driven accessibility and youth focus, Irish Times on backer gains, and Business Post on €7m Series A funding.
FoodMarble is a Dublin-based digital health scale-up founded in 2016 by Aonghus Shortt and co-founders Lisa Ruttledge, Peter Harte, and James Brief. It offers the world’s first personal digestive breath tester, AIRE 2, a pocket-sized device paired with an app that measures breath biomarkers for hydrogen and methane to detect fermentation from foods, aiding SIBO, IBS, and food intolerances. Users build a digestive profile by taking breath readings, logging meals and tracking symptoms, sleep, and stress. In turn, they receive personalised insights like FODMAP limits and trigger profiles for reduced bloating and discomfort. The 6-Week Discovery Plan accelerates dietary tweaks, with users reporting life-changing results in weeks, backed by proven gastroenterology research now consumer-accessible without hospital visits.
The company has raised over €8m, including SOSV, BVP, Breed Reply, Delta Partners, HBAN Medtech, Enterprise Ireland and others. This has fuelled expansion into US healthcare, where their digestive health platform is now used by hundreds of gastroenterologists. They have been featured on BBC, CNN, Sky News, Wall Street Journal, Silicon Republic, Irish Times and more.
Hexis is a Dublin-based nutrition technology start-up, co-founded by performance nutritionists Dr David Dunne (CEO) and Dr Samuel Impey, specialising in AI-driven personalised fuelling for athletes and teams. Launched in 2024 from Ballsbridge, it integrates with wearables and training planners to deliver real-time, periodised nutrition strategies via Carb Coding™ tech. The athlete app provides tailored meal recipes, energy balance insights, recovery optimisation, and automated workflows, simplifying complex planning for sports from GAA (e.g. Kerry) and rugby (IRFU) to pro cycling and NCAA. Beta testing with 900 athletes showed 75% performance gains in four weeks, saving coaches time on admin while enhancing squad-wide outcomes.
Trusted by elite organisations like Arsenal and IRFU, Hexis scales from individual users to teams, with features like meal delivery integration and global growth in the UK/US. It won the 2025 National Startup Awards Grand Prix and Tech category gold, backed by Enterprise Ireland, earning Silicon Republic and Business Post, underscoring its rise in sports nutrition tech amid partnerships with Output Sports and ŌURA peers.
Hiiker is a Dublin-based outdoor technology start-up founded in 2020 by Paul Finlay and his team, offering a freemium mobile app as the ultimate hiking planner and navigator for serious trekkers. It features over 100,000 verified trails worldwide with high-quality topographic maps (e.g. OSI Ireland, OS UK, USGS US) in 3D previews, offline downloads, and multi-day route planning tools for segments, alts, spurs, and transport. Users discover hikes, log GPX files, track activities (sharing to Strava/Garmin), add waypoints for campsites/amenities, and share live locations for safety—trusted by mountain rescue teams.
With 600,000+ users and €650k funding (Fuel Ventures, Enterprise Ireland), Hiiker excels in Irish trails like Kerry Way, supporting step goals via intuitive GPS without compass skills. It has been featured in The Irish Times, and app reviews highlight ease for Wicklow Camino. No major awards noted, but rapid growth targets US/UK premium PRO+ subs for advanced planning amid post-COVID hiking boom.
KinetikIQ, is a Galway-based company formerly known as Precision Sports Technology. It delivers portable LiDAR 3D motion capture via smartphone apps, turning any iPhone into a biomechanics lab for real-time exercise analysis. Olympic weightlifter and ex-Cisco engineer Emma Meehan leads as CEO/CTO and Sean McVeigh of Donegal GAA as Head of Marketing and Operations, using AI and computer vision for markerless feedback on technique, range of motion, and injury risk. Trusted by pros in the NBA, NFL, Premier League, and Irish clubs, it supports performance optimisation, rehab, and healthcare without wearables, offering quantifiable metrics for coaches and physiotherapists.
An Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-up, it won the 2025 Barça Innovation Hub Challenge (beating 60 global rivals), Best New Sports Business at Federation of Irish Sport Awards, KPMG Global Tech Innovator Ireland (advancing to Lisbon finals), and Adidas Breaking Barriers selection for women in sport. It has been featured in the likes of Silicon Republic. In 2026, it has a US seed round planned in addition to broadening its customer base abroad
MyGug was founded in 2021 by Fiona Kelleher and Kieran Coffey in Clonakilty, Co Cork, and has developed a small-scale anaerobic digester that transforms household and small business food waste into renewable biogas for cooking and nutrient-rich liquid fertiliser. MyGug is a compact automated system, designed to reduce carbon emissions by up to 90 per cent, cut energy costs, and lessen reliance on waste collection services. By turning unavoidable food waste into a valuable resource, MyGug helps create micro circular economies that close the loop between food waste management and renewable energy generation. MyGug is particularly well-suited to environmentally conscious food growers, schools, universities, small businesses – anyone looking to take meaningful climate action and turn their food waste from a burden into a valuable resource.
Branding has been recently enhanced to become AmuGreen and MyGug to showcase progress in services as well as product development. The company has been the recipient of many awards, including the Sustainability Category at the 2023 Irish Times Innovation Awards and a Finalist in the Tech Alliance Awards 2025, among others. MyGug has successful deployments across Ireland, the UK, and beyond in education, communities and businesses. Engineered to operate in temperatures from –20°C to +40°C and equipped with remote monitoring capabilities, the technology directly addresses the UN Sustainable Development Goals by turning food waste from a burden into a valuable resource. Systems are already showcased at prominent sites such as Airfield Estate in Dublin. See more about MyGug here
Perpetua Anywhere is a digital fitness and wellbeing platform developed by Perpetua Fitness, a premium gym brand that has expanded from physical clubs into hybrid, on-demand services. Founded by brothers Michael and David Price, and two-time Irish CrossFit champion Eoghan McGregor, it offers a library of online classes and programmes that cover strength, conditioning, mobility and general wellbeing, designed to fit around busy professional and family lives, particularly in a hybrid or remote-working context. The platform is positioned to make high-quality coaching and community-style training accessible at home, at work, or on the move, helping people build consistent exercise habits throughout the week.
The business is now based in Dublin, with flagship sites such as Windmill Lane and Lennox Street, and Perpetua Anywhere operates as its digital extension, serving users in Ireland, the UK and beyond. Through this hybrid model, the founders aim to blend boutique in‑person experiences with flexible online access, creating an inclusive fitness community that can be accessed from virtually anywhere.
Pleaze App is a Wicklow-based start-up. The app was created by James Lewis after many years of battling both addiction and mental illness. Diagnosed with multiple conditions, James spent years cycling through treatments, relapses, and hospitals until one night in January 2021, when a moment of despair turned into a mission of hope. From that point, James vowed to dedicate his life to building something that could prevent others from feeling the same helplessness he once did. Through Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, community backing, and sheer determination, Pleaze became a reality. The app combines urgency tools, education, and lived-experience storytelling to provide not just another support app, but a lifeline.
It started as a social enterprise in 2023 and is designed as the go-to mobile platform for mental health and addiction support. It empowers users by letting them create private groups with friends, family, or professionals; pressing a help button triggers vibrating alarms to selected contacts while guiding the user through a breathing simulator for immediate calm. Once responded to, notifications update the group, fostering rapid, non-judgmental intervention without traditional therapy barriers. The app addresses help-seeking gaps, especially for those misunderstood in crises, with features like instant alerts and community-driven responses to break isolation cycles. Available on App Store and Google Play, it prioritises user control and stigma reduction in Ireland’s mental wellness space.
Tackle Your Feelings (TYF) is an initiative launched in 2016 by Rugby Players Ireland in partnership with Zurich Ireland, aimed at breaking mental health stigma through a free app and resources. The app empowers users—primarily students, professionals, and rugby players—with tools for happiness, optimism, resilience, exam nerves, mindfulness, and coping strategies grounded in positive and sport psychology. The TYF Schools Programme, a key focus since the pandemic, delivers classroom-based life-skills lessons for ages 14-18, supported by teacher plans, ambassador videos from Irish rugby stars, and digital access for personal use. Usage surged 49% during COVID lockdowns, with 92% of users reporting improved wellbeing scores, positioning it as a bridge to professional help without diagnosing illness.
The campaign has earned accolades, including ‘Best App’ at the 2019 Spiders Awards and Best Long-Term Campaign at the 2021 Awards for Excellence in Public Relations. Press coverage includes being featured previously on ThinkBusiness.ie, I previously interviewed them on Focus on Diversity and being featured on the likes of Virgin Media TV and RTE. Backed by animations, #BeKind initiatives, and collaborations with Aware and Pieta House, TYF fosters proactive habits amid Ireland’s mental health conversations.
Umbrella Wellness is a Dublin-based SME founded around 2015 by Laura Farrington and George Brown. Laura’s background was after leaving a corporate job due to stress and burnout, according to their website, “She eventually turned to yoga and mindfulness to help balance work and life and out of a newfound passion and interest, travelled to India – the birthplace of yoga – to learn to be a Yoga and mindfulness teacher & coach. Laura’s aim is to teach techniques that will manage stress and enable them to look after their own mind and body. George’s background is in the events industry; however, he is also a Corporal Instructor in the Irish Army Reserves. They have now grown to have 12 instructors as part of their team.
The company is now recognised as one of Ireland’s leading providers of comprehensive workplace wellness solutions. It delivers online and on-site programmes across four pillars—physical, mental, nutritional, and financial wellbeing—via a monthly subscription platform called The Wellplayer. Services include seminars, workshops, yoga, mindfulness sessions, nutrition talks, and financial literacy classes, tailored for employees to boost productivity and reduce stress. With seven years of delivering onsite physical classes and talks, it serves corporates nationwide, claiming market leadership in bundled wellness.
Other resources for achieving your 2026 goals:
Finding a new job
Despite several well publicised setbacks last year on the diversity and inclusion (DE&I) front, a number of websites in Ireland support DE&I in recruitment by connecting underrepresented groups, such as those with disabilities, career returners, refugees, and remote workers, to inclusive employers amid sector challenges like tech layoffs.
These platforms provide targeted job postings, coaching, and incentives beyond mainstream sites, promoting flexible work and bias-free hiring to improve retention.
Some examples include: Ahead, Ireland’s primary site for graduates with disabilities looking for employment; not-for-profit roles with community exchange forums such as Activelink.ie, Back to Work Connect, Connect4work, aiding post-illness re-entry with employer compassion training; Employ Refugees, a free matching service with job coaching for legal refugees; EmployFlex (formerly Employamum), boasting 93% success in flexible roles for clients like Bank of Ireland; EmployAbility, who offer job coaching services for people with disabilities; Grow Remote, which has a remote jobs board with training for employers and employees in remote work; and Indielist, which matches companies looking for freelancers to creative freelancers looking for employment. Others resources include recruitment sites like IrishJobs.ie, Jobs.ie, TalentHub, WorkJuggle and The Open Doors Initiative.
Starting a new business
Many business owners will tell you that January is a perfect time of year to turn that idea you have into a business, even as a side-hustle. Ireland has several initiatives designed to support potential entrepreneurs and help them realise their dream of starting their own business.
These schemes are both government-run initiatives that empower underrepresented groups—such as women (especially in tech and rural areas), people with disabilities, migrants, refugees, youth, and returning emigrants—to launch businesses through targeted training, funding, and mentoring.
There are also Not-For-Profit and for-profit companies that can assist these fledgling ideas. These are free or subsidised programmes that address barriers like limited networks and capital, fostering sustainable enterprises via peer learning, pitch events, and grants to drive economic inclusion and innovation.
Some examples include: ACORNS for rural female entrepreneurs with six-month roundtables, boosting revenues by 51%; APNI Lions Den offering Shark Tank-style pitches for Irish-African professionals; Back for Business aiding returning emigrants via peer support; Back to Work Enterprise Allowance provides up to two years’ payments plus grants for people on social welfare to start their own company; AwakenHub connects women founders globally; Clann Credo with microloans and training; Going for Growth enhancing female-led growth; TU Dublin. which has a dictated self employment course for people with disabilities interested in starting their own business; and New Frontiers and Local Enterprise Offices who offer broad start-up support and have several grants and mentorship opportunities available.
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