💡 Transfer day deadline

Céad míle fáilte!

The summer is drawing to a close, the Premier League is back on our screens, and transfer deadline day is looming.

At Irish Insights Towers, we’ve been working the phones frantically to secure a signing of our own before the window shuts. And we’re delighted to announce it’s done – Eoghan O’Connor has joined the content team, hot on the heels of Conor Flanagan a couple of months back.

Eoghan brings a sharp journalistic edge to the squad. A trained investigative journalist with a Master’s from City, University of London, he’s worked as a digital journalist at The News Movement, gone undercover with the BBC, and cut his teeth in audio journalism with Noa.

Add to that his time as a Market Advisor for Enterprise Ireland in Stockholm and London, where he helped Irish tech companies expand internationally, and you’ve got someone who knows both sides of the storytelling game – media and startups.

For us, it means a big boost in editorial firepower (and hopefully fewer spelling and grammar clangers). For him, it’s a chance to dive deeper into the global Irish tech stories we love to tell and help shape what Irish Insights becomes next.

Today’s dispatch takes 4 minutes 40 seconds to read. ⏩ Only got 10 seconds? Here’s what matters

🌏 News From Abroad – Ralco pushes beyond New York into new U.S. markets, Stripe quietly builds its own blockchain, and Daragh Murphy’s Imprint edges toward unicorn status.

💸 Investment News – Overhaul’s $105M unicorn raise headlines the week, alongside fresh funding rounds for ProVerum, SynergySuite, foodflou, and more.

🧠 Brain Food – Eleven sharp reads on crypto’s big pivot, Irish wage wars in Big Tech, prostate innovation, and how startups are tackling global supply chain chaos.

Enjoy ☕

One last thing… we recommend that you enjoy today’s edition online 👇

NEWS FROM ABROAD
From Trinity to Anthropic: Another Irish name shaping the future of AI

Not every founder’s startup journey ends with a traditional big acquisition. More recently, founders are getting acqui-hired.

Case in point: Peter Hayes - machine learning researcher, Trinity College Dublin grad, and co-founder of London AI startup Humanloop.

Humanloop built clever enterprise tools for testing, evaluating and scaling large language models. They raised from the likes of Y Combinator, Index Ventures, and LocalGlobe, and worked with names like Duolingo and Gusto.

This week, Hayes and his co-founders announced Humanloop is winding down. But here’s the twist - the full founding team and most of their engineers have been snapped up by Anthropic, the $100B OpenAI rival behind Claude.

The deal follows the acqui-hire playbook, which is becoming increasingly common in Silicon Valley, particularly among AI companies.

Dublin is Anthropic’s EU base, so don’t be surprised if Hayes’ impact is felt close to home.

It’s a reminder that not every Irish founder's story is about IPOs and big exits. Sometimes, it’s about being so bloody good that the giants come knocking.

More stories you need to know 🔍

🇺🇸 Ralco eyes U.S. expansion
Irish construction tech startup Ralco is scaling beyond New York after recent funding, targeting new U.S. markets for growth. Read more

🌐 Stripe goes crypto with Tempo
The $92B fintech giant is quietly building its own Layer 1 blockchain, Tempo, while acquiring stablecoin infrastructure (Bridge, $1.1B) and wallet startups (Privy). A full-circle return to crypto after walking away in 2018. Read more

🏦 Imprint nears unicorn status
Founded by Daragh Murphy, fintech Imprint is closing in on a $1B valuation as it takes on established banking giants. A milestone moment for the Irish-founded company. Read more

FUNDRAISING
From Dublin truck yards to Texas unicorns

Two Irish lads, Barry Conlon (CEO) and David Broe (COO), have just pulled off a whopper raise for their logistics-tech company Overhaul - bagging $105 million in fresh funding.

What started as an idea to fix messy and unreliable supply chains has evolved into the go-to platform for giants like Microsoft and Pfizer. Not bad for a pair who once had to convince investors that logistics was worth betting big on.

This new raise puts Overhaul in the big leagues and unicorn territory. And it proves (once again) that when it comes to moving stuff around the world, the Irish are still bloody brilliant at it. Only now it’s IoT dashboards instead of shipping crates.

So, next time you’re stuck waiting for a parcel that “left the depot three days ago”... just know Barry and David are out there making sure global supply chains don’t collapse like your Amazon tracking.

Big win for the Irish diaspora. Massive win for logistics tech.

📰 Fundraising Announcements

🍗 SynergySuite secured a $12M Series C round to expand its restaurant back-office software, which is already used by KFC and BrewDog. Driving 4–6% margin gains per location. Founders: Suzanne Keane, Niall Keane

💉 ProVerum closed an $80M Series B to advance its ProVee System, a minimally invasive treatment for prostate conditions. A major step in medtech innovation. Founders: Dr. Conor Harkin, Ríona Ní Ghriallais

🏉 Sports Impact Technologies raised €650k pre-seed to develop real-time impact detection for sports safety. Data-driven protection on the field. Founders: Eóin Tuohy (CEO); Dónal Tuohy (CTO)

🧠 Neurovalens secured £6M for its wearable neurostimulation devices targeting mental health conditions. Total funding now exceeds £20M. Founders: Dr. Jason McKeown, Dr. Paul McGeoch

📦 Keychain raised $30 million to scale its AI operating system for manufacturers, helping to streamline global supply chains. Founder: Oisin Hanrahan

📰 Investment & Market Moves

🍀 Enterprise Ireland launches new grants for exporters – Up to €35k for market research and €150k for market entry strategies will support Irish firms navigating US tariffs. Read more

💷 £30M boost for Northern Ireland science and tech – New investment will strengthen defence, innovation, and manufacturing sectors across NI. Read more

👩‍💼 Caroline Gaynor elected IVCA chairperson – The Lightstone Ventures partner takes the helm as the Irish Venture Capital Association marks its 40th anniversary. Read more

🧠 BRAIN FOOD
Population Booms, Presidential Rumours, and Pints in the Palace

Here is your quick serving of Irish Insights-related wins, trends, events, media and resources that we think you’ll enjoy digesting 🍽️

👔 Businessman to President: Where have we heard that before? Gareth Sheridan, founder of Nutriband, is seeking a position in Ireland's presidential race, with his background under scrutiny. READ HERE

🏐 GAA Manager to President: Well, we haven’t heard that before. Jim Gavin is rumoured to be Fianna Fáil’s candidate for the Áras. READ HERE

⚖️ Trump vs Irish Watchdogs – Donald’s warning Irish regulators not to get too cosy with rules for US tech giants. READ HERE

🍻 Willie Aherne of the legendary Palace Bar, and an irish insight favourite, has snapped up Fitzgerald’s on Aston Quay. READ HERE

💸 Ruairi Kelleher (ex-CEO of Immedis, sold for €515m) is now in court over multimillion-euro loans. READ HERE 

🔥 Intercom’s Eoghan McCabe admits the “soft coup” at Intercom – staff walking out, new AI strategy in. READ HERE

🏢 The Guinness Enterprise Centre just welcomed its 1,500th company (QuizWizards). It’s a quiet reminder that behind the headlines, incubation is Ireland’s real growth engine. READ HERE

📈 Daft.ie says rents are now double the Celtic Tiger peak and 50% higher than pre-pandemic. Just 2,300 homes on the market nationwide. If you’re not dizzy reading that, you’re probably a landlord. READ HERE

🏉 Backed by Brian O’Driscoll, an online grinds startup lost €417k in year one. READ HERE

⚽ Record Irish Transfer – Shamrock Rovers’ 16-year-old Victor Ozhianvuna is off to Arsenal in what’ll be Ireland’s priciest football transfer ever. READ HERE

💰 Big Tech Wages – Amazon, Google, Meta and pals are paying average Irish staff €155k. READ HERE

🇺🇸 US tech stocks fall after MIT AI report: A new MIT report highlights that only 5% of AI pilot programs currently lead to rapid revenue growth, resulting in a decline in US tech stock prices. READ MORE

We will leave you today with an Irish founder (Will O’brien) of Ulysses, whose tweets we’ve been enjoying in “locked in” mode in the USA. He is worth a follow.

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