The report reveals that girls in Eire, elevating funds, have outshined their European friends.
TechIreland, the all-island portal that showcases start-ups and the Irish innovation panorama, has launched the Feminine Founder Funding Assessment 2026, which tracks funding into women-founded startups all through 2025.
The report reveals that final yr, 82 Irish start-ups being led by ladies raised a complete of €131m, which was recorded as the very best variety of women-led start-ups funded in any given yr. For comparability in 2025 there have been 36 organisations that raised between €0.1m and €0.3m however solely eight in 2024. 11 firms raised €18.7m.
Regardless of this optimistic determine nevertheless, the common deal dimension was proven to have considerably declined. In 2024, the common increase was €3.9m, dropping to €2.3m in 2025, with the report suggesting that that is because of a rise within the quantity of offers being made.
The median determine additionally dropped to only €100k final yr, in comparison with €1.5m in 2024, indicating that the divide between the smaller group of enormous rounds and the massive variety of very small rounds is widening. The report does say nevertheless, that even on this panorama Irish feminine founders are outshining their European friends within the elevating of early-stage funding.
“Whereas the Dealroom startup ecosystems portal reveals a decline within the variety of early-stage rounds for girls based start-ups, the development in Eire represents an almost two-fold improve within the variety of rounds raised by ladies based start-ups final yr. Due to the heavy lifting by Enterprise Eire by way of their centered assist for girls entrepreneurs.”
TechIreland’s analysis urged that angel networks, for instance HBAN and AwakenAngels, in addition to early-stage accelerator programmes resembling Fierce and NextWave, alongside flagship helps resembling Enterprise Eire’s PSSF and HPSU, play a essential position in constructing a powerful platform for girls founders.
The report additionally highlights a key sectoral affect. Funding into the life sciences and healthcare sectors made up virtually 70pc of the overall funds raised. This was mirrored in wider Europe the place well being stays a high sector amongst feminine founders.
The enterprise software program sector additionally carried out nicely, rising from €10.7m raised by 10 start-ups in 2024, to €30.7m raised by 22 firms in 2025. Different sectors experiencing development included the agri/meals area, shopper and e-commerce, whereas cleantech and fintech proceed to say no.
Funding was additionally disproportionate regionally. Just like earlier years, firms in Dublin dominated the general figures. Greater than 90pc of all funding into start-ups established by ladies befell at Dublin areas. The report attributed this to the truth that ProVerum, which accounted for almost half of all funding raised, is an organization primarily based in Dublin.
Commenting on the findings of the report, the chair of TechIreland, Brian Caulfield mentioned, “2025 was an attention-grabbing yr for feminine founders from a fundraising perspective. On the face of it, the numbers held up fairly nicely.
“Whereas it’s encouraging to see so many feminine based firms elevating capital, it’s a priority that the market has bifurcated, a really small variety of firms elevating massive rounds, and a really massive variety of firms elevating very small rounds, largely led by Enterprise Eire. The mid-market of seed and Sequence A raises is being hollowed out.”
Sarah Walker, who oversees startups and entrepreneurship at Enterprise Eire mentioned, “The headline TechIreland determine, 82 firms elevating in 2025, is sort of double final yr and the very best degree of exercise since 2017 which is trigger for celebration.
“Whereas the elevated variety of ladies led and co-founded firms elevating is encouraging, TechIreland reviews whole funding ranges of €131m in 2025, down from €145m in 2024, reflecting a difficult funding atmosphere.”
Lorraine Curham, the founding father of Fierce added, “For Eire, the following problem is what comes after that first cheque. In additional mature ecosystems, founders are supported not simply by programmes, however by robust networks, investor relationships and ecosystem layers that assist firms transfer from early traction into follow-on capital and scale. Eire has the pipeline. What it wants subsequent is the infrastructure layer to scale it.”
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