AI News Ireland

Protex AI raises $36m to continue US expansion

Workplace safety start-up Protex AI has secured $36m in a Series B funding round as the start-up expands across the US. The oversubscribed round was led by global investment firm Hedosophia, with participation from Salesforce Ventures and existing investors.

The Limerick-founded start-up provides tech that acts as a “third eye” to existing CCTV infrastructure. It offers an AI-powered platform which plugs into CCTV devices and uses computer vision to capture unsafe events autonomously.

According to Protex AI, areas with its “privacy-preserving” safety platforms in use have seen an average risk reduction of 64pc within just three months of deployment.

The company has a footprint in more than 20 countries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and counts a number of Fortune 500

IT company Auxilion announces up to 30 new jobs

Irish IT company Auxilion has announced a €10m investment which will see it expand its team Ireland and the UK.

Up to 30 new jobs will be created over the course of the year across the company’s operations and sales teams.

There will also be roles to support Auxilion’s enhanced modern workplace and Artificial Intelligence (AI) offering.

The company said it will also be investing in its professional development and upskilling opportunities for existing staff.

Northern Irish StormHarvester to double workforce after £8.4m raise

StormHarvester, a Northern Irish green-tech firm, has received an £8.4m investment, positioning the company to double its workforce in the region over the next three years.

The new roles will span sales, marketing and technical and engineering roles. The company is currently recruiting for an engineering manager and a technical support engineer, among other roles.

Comprising of funding from YFM Equity Partners and Emerald Technology Ventures, the fresh investment will also facilitate the expansion of its product range, as well as its sales and marketing capabilities, allowing for acceleration into newer markets including Australasia and North America, whilst strengthening its presence at home, the company said.

Founded in 2012, StormHarvester uses artificial intelligence (AI) to assist wastewater utilities to better manage their networks, responding to increasing risks on water systems from urbanisation, climate change and population growth.

The company, with a current workforce of 50, provides a number of AI-based products, including a Sewer Suite that uses machine learning and hyperlocal rainfall forecasting to predict blockages and inflow levels, as well as a network manager to reduce sewer overflows and reduce energy consumption.

Deciphex raises €31m in new funding round to fuel growth

Digital pathology company Deciphex has raised $32.3 million (€31 million) from investors in a new funding round that will help fuel its global expansion.

The company secured backing for its Series C round from Molten Ventures, with significant participation from ACT Venture Capital, Seroba, Charles River Laboratories, IRRS Investments, HBAN Medtech Syndicate and Nextsteps Capital.

Deciphex develops software and artificial intelligence to accelerate the delivery of pathology services, increasing efficiency for pathologists and potentially improving patient outcomes. It has been rapidly growing capabilities in the pathology computer aided diagnostics sector.

Advise secures €1.55m funding, plans to expand global workforce

Advise, an Irish founded data, analytics and AI platform provider has raised €1.55m in funding.

The company which helps retail manufacturers and brand owners to unlock revenues and margin growth, said it plans to use the funding to support the company’s global expansion plans.

Advise, the trading name for Dublin-based RecommenderX, was founded by Dr Kevin McCarthy and John Phelan.

The company plans to double its headcount in the next 12 to 18 months. It said the new roles, which will be located in Ireland, the UK and US, will be in the areas of sales, engineering and data science.

Irish AI start-up Jentic raises €4m in pre-seed funding

Dublin-based AI start-up Jentic has announced it raised €4m in a pre-seed funding round led by Elkstone, an Irish investment firm specialising in private markets. There was additional participation from Sure Valley Ventures, TechOperators and Shuttle, as well as a number of angel investors.

Founded in 2024 by Sean Blanchfield, Dorothy Creaven, Michael Cordner and Dr Tilman Schaefer, Jentic aims to unite the expanding AI agent ecosystem by enabling developers and companies to connect their AI agents to other systems, for the purpose of monitoring and managing large-scale AI deployments.

An AI agent is a software program that uses AI to plan how to accomplish goals and tasks, and then performs the steps in that plan by connecting to other software systems.

Irish biotech Nuritas lands $42m in oversubscribed funding round

Nuritas, the pioneering Irish biotech company founded and led by Dr Nora Khaldi, has secured $42 million (€40.4 million) in an oversubscribed Series C funding round. The company said the new financing will be used to further scale operations, as it prepares to introduce three new clinically validated peptide ingredients.

Khaldi, a mathematician with a PhD in molecular evolution and bioinformatics from Trinity College Dublin, founded Nuritas in 2014. The company uses AI to discover peptides, which are molecules in food and food by-products, that can be used by the life sciences sector in supplements and new drugs.

It uses data mining to find these peptides ten times faster and 500 times more accurately than traditional methods, while also significantly reducing costs.

Salesforce to hire 2,000 people ahead of 2025 software launch

US-based cloud software company Salesforce has announced intentions to hire an additional 2,000 new salespeople in order to meet AI demands ahead of the upcoming February 2025 launch of the second generation of its Agentforce technology. The business had previously reported it would make available 1,000 new roles, however, the latest figures are double that.

Agentforce is an AI platform that allows companies to build and customise generative AI agents to augment employee work and integrate into company workflows. Since announcing the positions, CEO Marc Benioff has said that there has already been 9,000 referrals for the 2,000 open jobs, which are mainly in the area of sales specialising in AI. 

Irish AI start-up Solidroad picked for prestigious Y Combinator accelerator

Solidroad, an AI-powered platform for hiring, onboarding and training of customer-facing teams, has been selected as part of the latest cohort for Y Combinator

The company, which will receive $500,000 investment as part of programme, raised $1.2m earlier this year from a number of well-known Irish angel investors

An expert group to keep AI accountable launched at Trinity

A new Artificial Intelligence Accountability Lab (AIAL) aimed at addressing the structural inequalities and transparency issues related to AI deployment is launching this evening (28 November) at Trinity College Dublin (TCD).

Supported by a nearly €1.5m grant from the AI Collaborative (an initiative of the Omidyar Group), Luminate and the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the AIAL will examine the technology’s broader impact, aiming to hold “powerful entities” accountable for technological harms, outline a “justice-driven” AI evaluation model, as well as audit already deployed models – specifically those used on vulnerable groups.

Housed in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity, the AIAL will be led by Dr Abeba Birhane, a research fellow in the ADAPT Research Ireland Centre and one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI last year.

Continuous Software secures €1m in funding for EMEA expansion

Continuous Software today (19 November) announced €1m in funding following the completion of the first phase of a seed funding round aiming to raise €2.5m in total.

The investment into the Dublin-based software company is led by Athens-based Performance Technologies, in association with a group of investors, which includes a system integrator and four Saudi Arabian businessmen.

This will allow the business to expand into the Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

The EMEA is known as being an advantageous region for businesses, as most of the included region falls within four time zones, and facilitates easier communication and travel.

Provizio announces imaging radar innovation at Slush

Irish start-up Provizio has announced the launch of VizioR&I, an innovative new imaging radar system built on Nvidia technology, at this year’s Slush event in Helsinki, Finland. The organisation is one of 24 companies making up Enterprise Ireland’s delegation at the showcase.

Founded in 2019 by CEO Barry Lunn, Provizio has developed a five-dimensional perception system that it claims can continually see, track and interpret vehicular behaviour and identify roadway elements – even during bad weather conditions.

Developed by veterans of the aerospace and automotive sectors, the VizioR&I makes use of the Nvidia Drive AGX Orin system-on-a-chip, which is the technology that runs Nvidia DriveOS. Using high-resolution 3D point clouds, the aim is to detect objects or obstructions from a range of up to 600 metres and radar odometry can be made available even in areas that can’t facilitate GPS tracking. The plug-and-play platform is designed for quick integration and aims to support diverse applications across automotive, agriculture and industrial sectors.

Digital agency Granite buys Limerick-based Coalface

Granite, a Cork-based full-service digital agency, has acquired Coalface, a Limerick-headquartered data science and digital marketing company.

Following the acquisition, Granite’s workforce will grow to more than 145 digital specialists, and its revenues are expected to exceed €18m next year.

Adrian Feane, the chief executive of Coalface, is joining the Granite management team as part of the acquisition.

He said the deal would create further opportunities to shape a more data-led approach to how marketers define their digital strategies.

Payslip gets €1.5m boost from venture capital backers in AI tech push

Payslip, the Co Mayo-based payroll technology company, has raised €1.5m in a funding round as it looks to enhance its artificial intelligence offering.

The investment for the Westport-headquartered company, founded by entrepreneur Fidelma McGuirk in 2016, was a follow-on round from previous backers, including Irish-based venture capital firms Frontline Ventures and Tribal.VC.

Payslip has also recently appointed new members to its board. These include David Clarke, the former chief technology officer at HR technology company Workday, and Barry Dowling, co-founder of global payments company Transfermate.

Irish Government unveils ‘refreshed’ national AI strategy

The Government of Ireland has today (6 November) launched a ‘refreshed’ national artificial intelligence (AI) strategy, building upon Ireland’s first strategy which was launched in July 2021.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Peter Burke, TD launched the refreshed AI strategy alongside Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation Dara Calleary, TD.

According to the Government, the refreshed strategy aims to take into account several significant developments in AI technology and regulation since the original strategy, titled ‘AI – Here for Good’, was published, such as the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 and the implementation of the EU AI Act over the summer. In particular, the strategy hopes to ensure that Ireland is a “leader” in the effective implementation of the EU AI Act.

Some of the new measures listed in the new AI strategy include: establishing an AI regulatory sandbox to foster innovation in AI; creating a safe space where civil and public servants are encouraged to experiment with AI tools; commissioning a landmark study on the potential impacts of AI (including generative AI) and other advanced technologies on key sectors of the Irish economy; and expanding the range of digital upskilling and reskilling initiatives, including those available via Skillnet Ireland and Springboard+.

Microsoft to add 550 jobs in Ireland covering AI and cybersecurity roles

Tech giant Microsoft is to create up to 550 jobs in Ireland over the next three to four years as the company invests heavily in its artificial intelligence (AI) operations.

The investment comes as Ireland has been chosen as a key location for Microsoft’s global AI innovation ambitions, aiding in the development of new technologies for its global operations and spanning some of the company’s key focus areas for the future.

The tech company said it would recruit for 120 jobs immediately. The jobs will be in software engineering, applied sciences, security research, product management and programme management, with about 15 to 20 per cent of the roles set aside for graduates or those early in their career. The remaining 430 jobs will be added in the next three to four years depending on customer demand.

Irish-founded Bus Optimisation Platform, CitySwift, Signs Largest Deal To Date with Go-Ahead Group

CitySwift, the cutting-edge performance optimisation platform revolutionising the public transport sector across the globe, has today announced its partnership with its largest customer to date, Go-Ahead Group, a leading transport provider of bus services. This move assures that all Go-Ahead Group operating companies in the UK and Ireland will roll out CitySwift’s AI-powered solution which optimises bus efficiencies, benefiting passengers, drivers, and cities.

This partnership follows strong results delivered by CitySwift through projects with several operating companies across the Go-Ahead network in the UK, including East Yorkshire Buses, Oxford Bus Company, and Go North East. With this partnership announcement CitySwift will now optimise 1.3 billion passenger journeys per year including supporting the review of Go-Ahead Ireland’s services in the Great Dublin Area. This latest development ensures that CitySwift’s industry-leading technology will be deployed in all entities in the UK and Ireland under the Go-Ahead Group’s umbrella, achieving unparalleled efficiency by leveraging advanced analytics, simulations, and optimisations.

Ocula Technologies Raises £4M in Series A Funding

Ocula Technologies, a Belfast and London, UK-based AI-driven eCommerce solution provider, raised £4M in Series a funding.

Led by Thomas McKenna, Ocula provides e-commerce players with a SaaS based boost, customer intelligence and price optimization platform. In conjunction with the funding, the company has launched a new feature designed to enhance eCommerce product copy that creates product pages. The AI-driven tool creates search-optimized, brand-aligned copy at scale, tailored for multi-language support. The system creates tangible revenue uplifts and efficiency gains for brands like AO.com, Blain’s Farm & Fleet, Coty and other known retailers in the US and the UK.

Irish data and AI startup Zerve raises €7m in funding

Irish AI and data startup Zerve has announced that it has raised $7.6m (€7m) in a funding round led by Paladin Capital Group.

The investment also involved participation from existing investor Elkstone and angel investors including former Executive Vice President of Engineering at Data Robot, Rob Hickey.

Zerve has developed an end-to-end platform which uses AI to simplify the building, managing and deployment of data workflows.

The company raised $3.8m in pre-seed funding in October 2023 led by Elkstone, and commercially launched its product in February of this year.

Wrksense raises €825,000 in pre-seed funding for global expansion

Wrksense, an AI-driven HR tech start-up has raised €825,000 in pre-seed funding to fuel its global expansion, enhance its AI features and build strategic partnerships with players in the recruitment industry

The pre-seed fund is supported by a group of angel investors along with Enterprise Ireland’s High Potential Start-up (HPSU) fund.

Founded in 2023 by Andrew Connolly, former managing director of Morgan McKinley Canada, and Ruaidhrí McDonnell, former head of software architecture at Spencer Stuart and eShopworld, Wrksense is designed specifically for recruitment agencies.

The platform, integrating itself with customer relationship management systems, enables agencies to tailor their service offering and scale by offering AI-powered tools for project management and reporting.

CalypsoAI to double its Irish workforce

AI cybersecurity company CalypsoAI has announced today (2 October) the opening of its new Dublin-based global co-headquarters, as its US co-headquarters moves to New York. The company plans to hire additional Dublin-based staff, increasing its current Irish workforce from roughly 50 to 100 professionals.

Hiring will take place throughout the next year and will focus on areas such as high-value engineering, data science, marketing, sales and operations.

CalypsoAI was founded in Silicon Valley in 2018 and in June of last year, the company established a new Dublin-based centre of excellence, announcing intentions to more than double its Irish workforce from a team of 20 to a team of 50.

Ardanis Technologies to create 20 new jobs to develop AI product

Irish software and digital consulting company Ardanis Technologies is creating 20 new jobs to support the development of its AI call centre tool, Aileen.

The product is designed to integrate into existing systems used by contact centres to help manage the volume of calls and other inbound requests through automation

Founded in 2016, Ardanis Technologies currently employs 42 people, having grown rapidly in 2021 following a €2m investment.

The company has offices in Dublin, London and Portugal, the latter of which was announced in 2022 as part of its European expansion plans

IntegrityIQ to become first TCD campus company to officially spin out from Trinity Business School

IntegrityIQ, the business behind an AI-driven platform designed to address failings in ethics and compliance in large multinationals, is set to become the first campus company to officially spin out of Trinity Business School.

It is hoped the move could be the first step in making Dublin a hub for ethics and corporate integrity in Europe.

IntegrityIQ is supported by The Learnovate Centre, a global research and innovation centre in learning technologies in Trinity College Dublin. In 2023, with Learnovate’s support, the environmental, social and governance (ESG) firm received €365,000 in funding under Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund to bring the platform to market – a process due to culminate this year.

HiiKER Introduces AI-Powered TrailGPT to give hikers more confidence when planning their hikes

HiiKER, the Irish-developed and owned hiking app, is excited to announce the launch of a new feature that promises to revolutionize the way hikers plan and prepare for their outdoor adventures. The latest release includes an AI-powered feature designed to answer any questions users may have about trails or parks within the app.

HiiKER TrailGPT is aimed at giving users (particularly new hikers) as much information as they need to feel confident ahead of their hike. The feature also personalises the experience by gathering historical recordings and activity data to answer questions that are tailored to the user.

Content licensing start-up Contenseo scores €390,000

Contenseo, a new start-up born out of the Adapt research centre at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) received €390,000 funding from Enterprise Ireland.

The venture aims to connect copyright holders and publishers with people who want content to engage and grow their audiences.

Adapt is a research centre for AI-driven digital content technology, co-ordinated by TCD and co-hosted by Dublin City University. The centre has partners all across the country and is funded by Taighde Éireann – Research Ireland, the new national funding agency established through the amalgamation of Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council.

CeADAR wants to spot Alzheimer’s early using AI

CeADAR, Ireland’s Research Centre for Applied AI, has joined a European project that aims to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in a faster, cheaper and more reliable way

The centre has a leading role in 2D-BioPAD, a €6m project that includes 11 public and private institutions across Europe. These entities are working together to create a diagnostics system that can detect the early signs of Alzheimer’s in a better and less invasive way than existing procedures.

There is currently no single test to determine if a person has the degenerative condition – testing typically requires a combination of diagnostic tools such as neurological exams, cognitive assessments, brain imaging and cerebrospinal fluid or blood tests.