{"id":327693,"date":"2026-02-09T02:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/327693\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T02:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T02:46:11","slug":"venture-capital-funding-for-irish-smes-was-down-23-in-2025-in-first-decline-since-2018-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/327693\/","title":{"rendered":"Venture capital funding for Irish SMEs was down 23% in 2025, in first decline since 2018 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish small and medium-sized enterprises<\/a> saw venture capital funding fall in 2025 for the first time in seven years, a new report has found. <\/p>\n

Funding over the year was down 23 per cent to \u20ac1.1 billion, the first decline since 2018, the Irish Venture Capital Association<\/a> (IVCA) VenturePulse report found. <\/p>\n

There was a marked decline of 46 per cent in the final three months of the year, with funding at \u20ac291.4 million, as the \u201cTrump effect\u201d caused by the tariffs<\/a> sparked uncertainty. That followed the sector\u2019s worst second quarter for 10 years, in what the IVCA said was a \u201crollercoaster\u201d year for Irish SMEs. <\/p>\n

That decline was driven by a fall-off in international investors in the final quarter, with a 71 per cent reduction in funding from \u20ac470 million to \u20ac132.4 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis may be due to hesitation and uncertainty by US VC firms due to a number of factors, including an \u2018America first\u2019 focus, negativity from across the Atlantic about Europe, and the impact of a weakening dollar,\u201d said IVCA chair Caroline Gaynor. <\/p>\n

\u201cCurrent geopolitical events have highlighted the need for us to be more self-reliant, have more access to local capital and not be dependent on overseas investors to fund our indigenous tech sectors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gaynor pointed to some positive developments on that front, including the Government\u2019s Seed and Venture Capital Scheme, which has \u20ac250 million in funding. <\/p>\n

Sarah-Jane Larkin, director general of IVCA, said US investors could also be more focused on local artificial intelligence (AI)<\/a> opportunities. \u201cCertainly the amount of money being invested there is sucking up a lot of venture capital,\u201d she said. \u201cUnicorn status is being achieved by early-stage start-ups in generative AI in the US much quicker than in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, there was a decline in larger deals, those over \u20ac30 million, which were a third lower year on year to \u20ac540.8 million and 69 per cent down in the fourth quarter to \u20ac111 million.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Caution among Irish venture capitalists leads investment activity to fall nearly 80%Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Funding in the \u20ac10 million to \u20ac30 million arena was also lower, declining 14 per cent, but smaller rounds performed better. Backing for the \u20ac3 million to \u20ac5 million rounds increased almost 40 per cent to \u20ac113.8 million, while rounds in the \u20ac1 million to \u20ac3 million range were only slightly lower \u2013 3 per cent \u2013 while seed funding fell by 5 per cent. <\/p>\n

There were a total of 186 deals during the year, compared with 217 in 2024. The top-funded sectors were life sciences, which accounted for 40 per cent of the total, with software in second place with 14 per cent of the year\u2019s funding. Cybersecurity beat AI companies to third place, with the latter attracting 9 per cent of the funding for the year, and fintech in fifth place at 8 per cent. <\/p>\n

On a quarterly basis, the top deal was by quantum computing company Equal 1 with \u20ac30 million in funding, with pharma company Shorla Oncology in second place with its \u20ac25 million funding round. Biotech Aerska, smart kitchen company Fresco and healthcare tech company Luminate Medical rounded out the top five. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish small and medium-sized enterprises saw venture capital funding fall in 2025 for the first time in seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[79,18,236,19,17,103747,40167,1411],"class_list":{"0":"post-327693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-venture-capital-association","14":"tag-smes","15":"tag-us-tariffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116038387936011058","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}