Tech Investment: How Ireland Compares With Europe
by John Clark
Spend any time among founders and start-up veterans and the conversation will range across funding and burn rates, bootstrapping and incubators. Dig a little deeper and you’ll get to the reasons they picked a particular location to launch. That choice can hinge on any number of factors — government backing, access to pre-seed and pre-revenue capital, market fit, available talent and more. So where does Ireland stand?
Some years back, Hubspot ran a city comparison that crowned Dublin the most entrepreneurial tech city in Europe, ahead of Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and London.
What does that tell us? The study found that 72% of Dubliners are prepared to take on risk and 96% believe the tech scene is expanding. Yet look a little closer and Ireland — Dublin in particular — doesn’t fare so well next to its European peers. In 2015, for instance, early-stage funding across Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and London averaged €313m, while Dublin drew €58m. Hardly thrilling.
Valuer.ai and Sifted offer a similar comparison: their 2019 findings ranked Dublin 28th of 30 for best start-up ecosystems, well behind London (3), Paris (9), Berlin (10) and Amsterdam (15), and 35th of 50 for best start-up cities — trailing the likes of Berlin, Helsinki, Stockholm, Zurich, Istanbul and Madrid.
Ireland has what it takes to lead. The capital is there, co-working spaces keep appearing, and incubators and accelerators seem to be multiplying; talent pools, education levels and entrepreneurial mindsets are all in place. There are plenty of PE and VC funds (though I wonder how many new ones are being formed), plus strong government supports, especially for such a small population. What’s really needed, though, is support for pre-seed investment. Early stages seem to favour bricks-and-mortar businesses over backing what could be ‘the next big thing’ in tech.
So while Ireland may look to some like a thriving start-up scene, I believe more must be done to keep it growing and competitive. Achieving that calls for a shift in mindset and a greater appetite for risk when it comes to pre-seed and pre-revenue investment.
What do you think?
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Derek Lit Whelan do you have revenue/profit numbers? Those seem to be a lot harder to find than investment figures. In an era of loss-making behemoths with investment in the millions and valuations in the... see more do you have revenue/profit numbers? Those seem to be a lot harder to find than investment figures. In an era of loss-making behemoths with investment in the millions and valuations in the billions, actually making money seems to have been over-looked.11 months ago