Grants, funding rounds and expansion plans – Ireland’s medtech sector is breaking records and setting the ‘gold standard’.
By all accounts, Ireland’s medtech industry is booming – with support from Government and other parties, and a strong pipeline from university to industry that keeps new talent flowing. The country exports medtech products worth around €15bn annually to more than 100 international destinations.
Even the medtech startup scene here is the envy of the world when it comes to early stage funding, according to serial medtech founder and educator Rush Bartlett — despite the glaring funding gap the country faces.
Healthcare is a strong sector with new strategies coming from all regions. In honor of Future Health month, SiliconRepublic.com has compiled a list of the strongest players creating innovative medtech solutions.
At Aerska
The small biotech emerged from a $21 million funding round last October, and received another $39m in Series A funding in February led by EQT Dementia Fund and Age1. Aerska has also been named on Tracxn’s ‘Soonicorn’ list of start-ups that may achieve the coveted ‘unicorn’ status.
The Dublin-headquartered company – co-founded by Jack O’Meara along with David Hardwicke and Stu Milstein – is using brain shuttle technology to develop RNA medicines for diseases of the nervous system.
It aims to develop data science to integrate genetic, biomarker and patient data with the aim of bringing precision medicine to neurology – starting with gene models for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
A lot
The Belfast-based company is using its AI-driven drug discovery engine to fight aggressive cancers, such as triple breast cancer, and drug-resistant bacteria.
Amply is a spin out of Queen’s University Belfast and was founded by Dr Ben Thomas, Dermot Tierney and Prof Chris Creevey. Last May, it raised £1.75m led by Twin Path Ventures – a specialist AI investor – for its drug discovery platform, which has followed up a £1.4m raise from 2024.
The company said its drug discovery platform analyzes biological molecules, identifies potential therapeutic targets and prints real molecules that can be rapidly tested and developed in the lab.
Coroflo
This Dublin startup made history at CES this year by winning four awards for its breastfeeding monitor – the highest number of wins for a single product at the CES show.
Founded by Rosanne Longmore, Jamie Travers and Helen Barry in 2017, Coroflo is a high-powered startup in Enterprise Ireland backed by the likes of Brian Caulfield of Scale Ireland and Shemas Eivers of the Boole Syndicate.
Coroflo’s flagship product – the Coro – is a custom silicone nipple shield that contains a patented microflow meter that allows mothers to track how much breast milk their babies are consuming. Information is collected by Coro while the baby is breastfeeding, and this real-time data is sent to a smartphone application created by Coroflo.
CrannMed
Galway medical device manufacturer CrannMed has recently won a €12.5m acceleration grant from the European Innovation Council to develop treatments for chronic inflammatory pain.
Its product, ‘SakuraBead’ is a “resorbable embolic microsphere”, which works by stopping blood flow in a controlled inflamed area for a short period of time to reset the inflammatory process. The device is undergoing testing to be approved for sale in the US and EU. Commercial sales are expected to begin by the end of the year.
The company has also received €6.6m under the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund (DTIF) program for a joint health technology project led by the University of Galway, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and Salaso Health Solutions.
Fortis Medical
Also from Galway, this Spiddal-based medtech received €2.1m from DTIF last October to develop a wearable device to help people suffering from movement problems after a stroke.
University of Galway spin-out Fortis Medical is now leading a consortium including RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Smart Electronics to develop its ‘CueStim-Stroke’ device.
The medtech has designed a new product to provide home rehabilitation support to patients while also providing doctors with real-time data on the patient’s progress.
Fortis was founded in 2024, when Gearóid Ó Laighin retired as a professor of electronic engineering to take up the role of chief scientific officer of the new company.
Lia Eyecare
Last year, Lia Eyecare won an award at the Medical Device Development Center competition hosted by the University of Massachusetts, winning $25,000 for its dry solution ‘Nightleaf’, a headband that restores natural water to the eyes while sleeping.
The drip-free and drug-free device uses thermal fluctuations to regulate tear film production, which also supports the body’s natural drainage mechanisms.
“We face a long-standing but critical gap in the treatment of dry eye syndrome, a condition that disrupts the sleep and quality of life of millions around the world,” founder and CEO Breda O’Regan told SiliconRepublic.com in an interview. Lia was founded in 2021 by O’Regan and Sinéad Buckley.
Marama Labs
Marama Labs made headlines last November after being awarded ‘the most impressive pioneer of deep technology in Europe’ at the Deep Tech Demo Day.
The startup had just launched its CloudSpec tool for nanomedicine development a few months ago, which CEO Dr Brendan Darby said could set a “new gold standard” for spectroscopy devices.
CloudSpec improves on existing UV-vis spectrophotometers, which, quite simply, analyze the chemical composition of liquids based on how they absorb light.
Traditional spectrophotometers, however, cannot be used to measure cloudy liquids. CloudSpec addresses this by placing samples in a highly illuminated circular chamber, then detecting and removing diffuse light effects. According to Marama Labs, their device reduces the time to measure chemicals from two hours to just 15 seconds.
The medtech, which has two bases in New Zealand and Ireland, was founded by Darby, Prof Eric Le Ru and Dr Matthias Meyer in 2019.
Meta-Flux
The Dublin-based biotech raised €1.8m in October for its AI-powered platform designed to simulate disease in drug development. The round received support from senior executives from Pfizer, Merck and Gilead Sciences, as well as technology leaders from Google, Amazon and Indeed.
It takes about $2bn on average to bring a successful drug to market, CEO and immunologist Lee Sherlock told SiliconRepublic.com. But only about one in 100,000 drugs make it through the entire funnel and reach patients successfully.
“The goal is not to find more drugs to sell – it is to find more precision with the drugs we bring to the market,” he said. Meta-Flux was founded in 2021 by Sherlock and Brendan Martin. In its first trials, the company successfully identified novel biomarkers and flagged preclinical risks, it said.
SymPhysis Medical
Galway’s SymPhysis Medical secured $1.25m in funding last November to support regulatory approval for its ‘Debris Removal System’ in the US, as it planned a robust market launch in the country later this year.
Founded in 2018 by Tim Jones and Dr Michelle Tierney, SymPhysis develops end-stage care solutions.
The funding is expected to help grow the SymPhysis product – a home solution for the management of pleural effusion inflammation in late-stage cancer patients. Additionally, it will also allow the company to establish its first US base in Rhode Island.
The company’s headquarters will remain in Galway, and Jones said in a press release: “Rhode Island gives us a bridge to the American market, not a replacement for what we do here.”
Tympany Medical
The Galway-based medtech is behind a new surgical tool called the Solascope, a variable-angle and self-cleaning endoscopic tool.
The tool consists of a lightweight reusable handle combined with single-use, hollow probe tips. “Our solution provides better visibility, improved ergonomics for surgeons and a more stable practice,” said CEO Michael Gilmore. The startup was founded in 2018 by Rory O’Callaghan and Elizabeth McGloughlin.
Last year, it opened a €600,000 fundraising round to scale Solascope. The round raised around €100,000 directly through the site Crowdcube.
The startup was founded in 2018 by Rory O’Callaghan and Elizabeth McGloughlin. McGloughlin won third place in the European Institute of Innovation and Technology Women Leadership 2025 category at last year’s European Women Innovators Awards.
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