Irish tech companies raised over €1 billion funding in 2020

TechIreland published their Funding Review, which shows that Irish tech funding in 2020 reached a new high of €1.19 billion with a record number of 264 companies raising investments. Despite the pandemic, 10 companies each raised over €30 M last year – more than double the previous year when just 4 companies raised over €30 M. The number of companies raising €5-30million also more than doubled since 2018.  These results highlight the real advances being made by the Irish tech sector and underline the benefits of supporting tech startups that are now scaling and creating exports and jobs across Ireland.

Irish tech raises over €1 billion

The overall results were dominated by some very large rounds. The top 10 largest investments accounted for a little more than half (53%) of the funding raised.  Amarenco raised €165 M, followed by ALX Oncology (€98M) and Fenergo (€73.6 M).

While €1.19billion is a record achievement, the report highlights some not so good news.  The downward trend in funding at the Seed stage, which has been evident for the past few years continued. Funding rounds in the €1-3 M range have been dropping consistently – by over 20% over the last four years – €97 M in 2017, €89 M in 2018, €82 M in 2019 and further down to €78 M in 2020.

For very early stage companies, supports like New Frontiers, the Competitive Start Fund and High Potential Startup funding by Enterprise Ireland held up the numbers despite the pandemic. Enterprise Ireland doubled their support for early stage businesses last year.

Not surprisingly, the HeathTech sector accounted for most of the funding last year – 64 companies raised a total €411 M. Covid related projects were important for several companies: Let’s Get Checked raised €71 M to produce rapid test kits, and companies like Kastus, Remedy Bio and Aquila Bioscience all received supports for their Covid related solutions.

Enterprise Solutions was the largest sector in terms of the number of companies, with 86 companies raising €219 M. FinTech was at a distance third with 30 companies raising a total of €186 M. 10 CleanTech companies raised €173 M. Other sectors such as AgTech, eCommerce, MediaTech all raised in the €30 M range with smaller sums going into SportsTech, Travel, Security and Telecom.

Dublin dominated, taking over 60% of the funding. The East region saw €800M invested into 153 companies. Companies based outside Dublin raised a total €438 M. The West had 27 companies that raised a total €58 M.  The SouthEast had 36 companies that raised €310 M (including Amarenco’s €165 M). €10+ M went into 7 companies in the Southwest.

29 Northern Ireland-based companies raised a total €26 M.

Companies building future technologies raised significant funding last year. 32 Artificial Intelligence companies raised a total €121 M, double the funding of the previous year.  Thirty nine Software-as-a-Service companies raised €202 M. There was a big increase in funding for Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality with €45M invested, up from €11 M in the previous year.

2020 also saw a new milestone in Female Founder Funding as 48 companies with female founders or co-founders raised a record €105 M. Though Irish female founders outperform their European and American counterparts, there is still a lot more work needed to support female entrepreneurs. In 2020, average funding into female founded companies was €2.1 M, less than half of the average for all-male founder teams.

The full report can be accessed here.

Responding to TechIreland’s Funding Review 2021 Edition:

John O’Dea, TechIreland’s Chief Executive said – Ireland is producing world-class entrepreneurs and tech businesses with the ambition and capability to conquer global markets.  While we rightly celebrate some of the huge investments here, we always need to remember to support the vulnerable early-stage businesses that will be the giants of the next decade.

Brian Caulfield, Partner at Draper Esprit said – The pandemic had a dramatic impact on some sectors, with travel, hospitality and some retail businesses very badly hit and were forced to take radical action to reduce costs and extend their runway. Companies serving other markets were largely unaffected and quickly transitioned to remote working.

Niall McEvoy of Enterprise Ireland said – Irish startup funding, while challenging, remains robust. We have more than 10 active institutional investors alongside Enterprise Ireland, a strong angel network in HBAN and European Angel Fund, good family office activity and now crowdfunding as a real option.

Anna Scally of KPMG said – Globally there has been a trend towards investment in later stage companies. It will be important to ensure that Irish fintechs don’t get left behind and that earlier stage companies continue to attract investment to scale and compete internationally.

Sarah-Jane Larkin of IVCA said – Over a third of the funding went to Life Science companies.  Ireland is now a global centre of excellence in this sector.  The picture was quite different 15 years ago when the emerging life science sector accounted for just 4% of the total.

Gary Davidson of Tech Nation said – In the past year, Northern Ireland has had some great investment success stories. However, access to capital is always an issue – hence the need to support our founders to showcase to international investors.

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