The Week In Irish Startups - by Ed O'Riordan

Irish startups closed a busy week of fundraising and product launches, led by Dublin hotel AI firm Otel AI which has raised €2.8 million within six months of launch in a round led by Playfair with participation from Nebular and angel investors including Indeed co‑founder Paul Forster. Other headline deals include Dublin fintech Audrey AI’s $1.8 million pre‑seed round led by Sure Valley Ventures and Delta Partners, security AI vendor Vox Talk AI’s €1.35 million pre‑seed, Ulysses’ $46 million across seed and Series A rounds, and Solidroad’s $25 million Series A, bringing its total to $31.5 million.

"Here are the main events, funding and hiring news this week that I thought you might find of interest in the Irish Start‑up Ecosystem," Ed O'Riordan wrote in his newsletter summarising the activity.

Funding and product positions

• Otel AI — Founded by Paul Ryan and Nikhil Patil, the Dublin startup builds "AI co‑workers for hotel General Managers, connecting existing hotel systems into a single operational layer that automates daily reporting, analysis and back‑office tasks." The €2.8m raise was led by Playfair with Nebular and angels including Paul Forster. Otel AI is already live with hotel groups across Ireland and the UK, including the O’Callaghan Collection and Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel, and will use the funding for product expansion and growth into the UK, Europe, the US and the UAE.
• Audrey AI — Founded in 2025 by Ryan Loughran and David Burke, the Dublin‑based fintech raised $1.8m in a pre‑seed round led by Sure Valley Ventures and Delta Partners, with participation from Enterprise Ireland and angels such as former Calypso CEO Donnchadh Casey and former Wayflyer CBO Conor Jones. Audrey AI builds AI tools to automate time‑consuming elements of financial audits and will grow its audit and engineering teams and expand across Ireland, the UK and beyond.
• Ulysses — The San Francisco‑based autonomous ocean vehicle company co‑founded by Will O’Brien, Colm O’Brien, Akhil Voorakkara and Jamie Wedderburn raised $46m in two rounds: an $8m seed led by Pebblebed and a $38m Series A led by a16z, with participation from Booz Allen Ventures and Harpoon Ventures. Ulysses, which operates vehicles as a service rather than selling hardware, reports more than $5m in customer revenue and partnerships that include the US Navy, the Government of Australia and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
• Vox Talk AI — Founded by Mark Harkin, the Dublin security AI company raised €1.35m in a pre‑seed round co‑led by Delta Partners and ACT Venture Capital and supported by Enterprise Ireland. The firm deploys AI operators handling voice calls, incident logging and communications across alarm monitoring centres in more than 30 languages; customers cited include Fenix Monitoring, Action 24 and G4S.
• Solidroad — Founded in 2023 by former Intercom employees Mark Hughes and Patrick Finlay, Solidroad closed a $25m Series A led by Hedosophia on top of a $6.5m seed led by First Round Capital, taking total funding to $31.5m. The customer support QA platform automates quality assurance across voice, chat and email, and lists Ryanair, Crypto.com and Oura among its clients.

Outlook and ecosystem activity

Beyond financing, the Irish tech calendar is busy: AWS Startup Ireland is hosting a half‑day "Finance & Compliance for Enterprise Readiness" event on April 28 with Vanta and Partners for Growth; Tech Tee Up returns on June 16 at Elm Park Golf & Sports Club; and TechTides expands to Belfast with a June 11 conference at the ICC. Hiring remains active too, with roles highlighted from AWS (Startup Account Manager) to Otonomee (Business Development Director), Ctrl Alt (multiple engineering and operational positions) and Daisy (Applied Scientist and Full Stack Engineer).