Raising funding in Ireland (2026): Picking the right route and showing up ready

Funding in Ireland hasn't dried up, but it's moved.

More of the money is landing in fewer rounds, and the space between "seed went well" and "we're ready to scale" is where a lot of teams now get stuck. That's what this blog is about.

Rather than give you another list of funding types (we have that for you here), I'm setting out how to decide what's realistic for your stage, what proof you'll be expected to show and how to plan your next move – without burning six months chasing the wrong conversations.

TechIreland's Irish Startup Funding Review captures the mood. In 2024, Irish companies raised €978 million across 307 raises. The total went up while the number of companies raising went down, which tells you what's changed – selectivity.

And while Q1 2025 was a record at €634 million, it was pulled up by a small number of very large rounds, so it isn't a great benchmark for most early-stage teams.

The funding reality right now

The quickest way to read the current market is to look at where the money is concentrating.

The 2024 figures in TechIreland's report show that €978 million was raised across 307 companies. That's a decent headline number, but the more useful signal is the drop in how many companies raised at all.

Fewer deals getting done usually means:

• more time spent in diligence

• more pressure on pricing

• more emphasis on clean metrics

That same pattern is why the €1 million to €5 million range has become such a sticking point.

Plenty of teams can prove they have a product and customers. Far fewer can show the repeatability and margins needed for a larger round, and investors have been slower to take that risk.

You see the knock-on effect in the way big quarters can disguise the day-to-day reality.

Q1 2025 hit €634 million across 79 companies, but a small number of very large rounds did a lot of the heavy lifting. So it isn't a reliable reference point if you're raising at the earlier end.

Where funding is going

Having a general idea of where funding is going also helps you consider your own story.

Recent data has shown strong performance in the health, energy and enterprise software sectors. Dublin still takes the largest share, but other counties show real activity too.

That matters if you're building outside the capital and want to anchor your pitch in the network you can realistically access.

TechIreland also tracks funding going to female-founded companies, which has been improving but remains a small slice overall.

What Budget 2026 is signalling

Budget 2026 points in a pretty clear direction. The government wants more firms scaling, more innovation and more activity outside Dublin, and it's backing that with extra funding into the enterprise system.

• The government's own Budget guide flags increased funding for Enterprise Ireland to support companies to scale and innovate.

• The Department of Enterprise briefing is even more explicit. It talks about a higher allocation for 2026 and new or expanding priorities, with a focus on competitiveness, innovation and regional impact.

You don't need to read that as "there's loads of easy money". Better to take it as a hint about what tends to travel well in applications and investment memos right now, which is:

• a credible scaling plan

• a clear angle on innovation

• a reason this business matters to jobs and productivity in Ireland

A simple way to choose your route

1. Start with what you're really building

Be straight about whether this business can scale without you being the system.

If it can't, that's fine, but you'll do yourself a favour by targeting funding that fits a strong trading business.

If it can, you need to show a credible path to repeatable growth beyond your personal network and bandwidth.

2. Get specific about stage

Look at how the business behaves.

• Are customers paying a price that leaves real margin once you strip out one-off favours and discounts?

• Are sales and delivery repeatable or is every deal a fresh invention?

• Are you still proving demand, or proving you can produce demand on purpose?

3. Pick your lane

Most Irish founders end up in one of four lanes.

1. Early validation cash is about speed and proof.

2. Trading growth money needs stability and cash control.

3. Venture-scale money expects a large market and evidence you can win it.

4. Scale-up capital wants predictability, governance and clean reporting.

If your pitch feels fuzzy, you're probably mixing lanes.

4. Use our main guide for the options

Once you know your lane, you can choose the right funding routes. That's where our funding guide earns its keep.

What "funding-ready" looks like in 2026

The basics decide the outcome

Most raises fall over on basics that founders think are "details". In 2026, those details decide whether you get momentum or weeks of polite silence.

Use of funds needs to read like a plan

You need a tight use of funds that reads like an execution plan, not a wish list.

If you're raising for growth, spell out the milestones the money buys, the order you'll tackle them in and what you'll stop doing if the data says it's not working.

If you're raising to build, be clear on what "done" means, how you'll prove it's working and what the next proof point is after that.

A model you can defend, not perform

Have a model you can defend without theatrics. Not a spreadsheet designed to impress, but a working model you use to run the business.

It should show:

• how cash moves month to month

• what actually drives revenue

• where gross margin lands when you're not being generous to yourself

• what happens if sales slip by one quarter

People will forgive uncertainty. They won't forgive you not knowing your own numbers.

Evidence of demand must be sharp

Your evidence of demand has to be sharper than "we're getting interest".

• If you're pre-scale, show:

  • repeatability

  • cohorts that don't collapse after the first month

  • sales cycles that aren't all over the place

  • a pricing story that isn't built on discounting

• If you're earlier, show that:

  • customers are choosing you for a specific reason

  • the reason is likely to hold as you grow

Don't let admin kill the deal

And don't let paperwork slow you down.

A messy cap table, an unclear position on intellectual property, unpaid taxes or a pile of side letters you've forgotten about can turn a warm conversation into a dead one.

When money is concentrating into fewer deals, people don't hang around while you untangle avoidable issues.

Bridging the €1 million to €5 million gap

This is where a lot of solid companies get stranded.

You're past the point where a story and a prototype carry you. But you're not yet predictable enough for investors to feel they can size a bigger cheque without taking a flyer.

The data in TechIreland's report backs up the feeling founders have had on the ground, with a thin patch in that mid-range raising band even when total funding numbers look strong.

The way through is usually to stop trying to "raise the round you want" and raise the round that buys you a single, undeniable proof point.

• For a B2B (business to business) company, that might mean getting to the point where sales don't rely on you doing every pitch and chasing every deal.

  New leads come in consistently, the sales process follows a familiar pattern and you can predict roughly how long it takes to turn interest into revenue.

• For a product business, it might be getting margins and supply nailed so growth doesn't make the business worse.

• For a platform with usage, it might be showing retention and expansion that holds when you stop hand-holding every customer.

Honest numbers

It also means being honest about runway maths.

If you're heading into this gap with six months of cash left, you're negotiating from a weak position and you'll end up taking whatever comes, often on terms that make the next round harder.

The founders who get through tend to buy time early, before it's urgent. They tighten spend, fix pricing leaks, cut the half-built side bets and focus the whole company on the one metric that unlocks the next raise.

And it helps to plan the raise as a sequence instead of a single event. A lot of teams do better when they treat the first close as permission to hit the milestone, then earn the rest.

That can be as simple as setting expectations upfront that you'll come back with updated numbers once the proof point lands, rather than pretending you can predict the next 18 months with precision.

The goal is to make it easy for the next investor to say yes without needing faith.

Next steps

Decide what you need to prove next, then line up the funding route that best matches that proof point.

When you do that, the process gets faster because you're talking to the right people with the right story.

If you're mapping out your options, our funding guide is the quickest overview of what's available in Ireland and what each route is actually for.

And if you're already fundraising, focus your time where it matters.

Keep your numbers tight, keep your use of funds specific and don't drift into a bigger raise until you've nailed the proof point that makes that raise obvious.

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