Full coverage: Start-ups

Stephen Costello, the co-founder of digital health provider Spectrum.Life, explains how UK expansion became the driving force behind the company and why it plans to look farther east rather than west.

Building a company or investing is never easy. If it’s easy, you’re probably doing it wrong or someone’s defrauding you. When you probe many founders and investors about their successes, beyond the interviews and posts, you will find a messy, complex, and often inelegant story.

Ubiquitous LCD screens contain valuable recoverable materials, as well as poisonous mercury. Votechnik has robotised their disassembly and is now exporting to Sweden and the US.

Rebecca McManus is building a healthcare app that aims to detect cognitive decline in older people using large language modelling technology. Her family history drives her and she believes a career in sales gives her an edge.

Replacing call centres with home workers and a suite of customer management services and technologies is proving to be a scalable business for the Cork-based company.

Founded by Cork brothers Dave and Ger O'Meara, Spirable was taken over in 2021 by sports tech giant Genius Sports in a deal pegged at $55m. But three years on, the vendors claim they are still owed millions in earn-out payments.

Sustain.Life, founded less than three years ago by Irish entrepreneur Mike Hanrahan and three other former Walmart executives, has been bought by the listed US software firm Workiva.

From the boardroom table to the poker table, former Pigsback boss Michael Dwyer is finding more time for his passion for poker and helping young start-ups get off the ground. In recent weeks, he won $1.3m at the poker table.

Dublin start-up Ceartas recently closed a $4.5 million round and now wants to bring its AI-powered illicit content removal tech to film and TV studios.

He has built a career driving growth with the world's biggest tech companies. Now Nick Friedrich wants to help drive loyalty technology platform SQUID to 100 million users.