Full coverage: Start-ups

Eoghan McCabe has just moved back to Dublin from San Francisco. Having transitioned from CEO to chairman of Intercom, the entrepreneur talks about winning customers like Amazon, Trump’s America, wealth, investing and the future.

Fidelma McGuirk had enough of Dublin corporate life and decided to head with her family to the west of Ireland. There, she founded and built her business from the ground up. Payslip is now used by employers all around the world.

Michael O’Dwyer got the idea for his business as a young engineer ridding Dublin’s sewers of grease and fat. He now leads an exciting startup that has just closed a new fundraising round with big-name backers.

VideoDoc was billed as the next big thing, raising millions from investors and even appointing a former health minister as chair. Now, its assets have been sold for crumbs with liquidators poised to wind up the business. Just what went wrong?

Irish entrepreneurs have attracted attention – and capital – in the rush to revolutionise agriculture with technology. Here are some of those who are converting ideas into solid investment, and why their backers decided to take the plunge.

Nicola McClafferty previously sold her online fashion retailer Covetique to Asos. Now, as investment director of quoted tech investor Draper Esprit, she is on the other side of the investment table. She talks to Francesca Comyn about risk, reward and the ingredients of success.

Serial entrepreneur Maeve Kneafsey has founded a string of digital marketing companies. Now, she has teamed up with Brenda Jordan to create SaaS business CloudKPI. A string of deals are in the pipeline, and the firm is set to close a €1m funding round.

Every year a host of Irish tech startups descend on Web Summit to pitch, promote and seek out investment for their ideas and products. Some are freshman entrepreneurs; others are seasoned business hands. Francesca Comyn caught up with four founders in Lisbon this week.

The Lisbon conference may have become too frantic for startups to be noticed, yet despite doubts and introspection around the misuse of personal data, the event remains the epicentre of the tech world.

Numerous studies show that female-led companies perform better and produce higher returns than their male counterparts. So, the next big trend in investing is not in blockchain or IoT – it is women. And there’s a gap in the market for someone exploit this.