Irish start-ups raised more than €6m from the public in the first eight months of the year, new figures show today.

Dublin-based equity crowdfunding platform Spark Crowdfunding today reported record growth as the public and ordinary investors looked for new ways to use their higher than expected levels of savings, as a result of Covid lockdown restrictions.

Spark Crowdfunding said that Paddy Power's new sports technology platform ASX raised €2.2m in less than a month through crowdfunding, while Nova UCD-based Akkure raised almost €1.2m.

Revenue operations start-up Tacenda raised over €658,000, athleisure firm FitPink raised €356,0000, remote working platform Bowsy raised almost €358,000 and FinTech company Pitpit Global raised €288,000," it added.

"Early-stage companies looking for new venture funding have been able to access more funds from the crowd than in ordinary economic circumstances, Spark Crowdfunding's chief executive Chris Burge said.

He said Spark Crowdfunding saw a record increase in new accounts from January to August as small to medium sized Irish investors were presented with opportunities to invest in a range of new businesses.

"Our investor database grew by over 140% in the first six months of this year as the ordinary Irish individual spent more time online and had higher levels of disposable income," he added.

The company said its average investment size is just €2,500.

"But when you multiply that across thousands of investors it doesn't take long for them to build up the firepower of a Venture Capitalist. Our role is to facilitate connections between exciting Irish start-ups and individual investors interested in finding the next Stripe," he said.

Irish start-ups raised €2.5m last year through Spark Crowdfunding. Campaigns included ones by Frequency which saw three grounded Aer Lingus pilots raise €278,000 in August, and Donegal-based software company Motarme which raised €117,000 in May.

Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start-up companies featured strongly in the list of companies now using equity crowdfunding to match the funds offered by the atate agency.

Zipp Mobility, an electric scooter share scheme, raised €560,000 on the Spark platform and was one such company that was able to draw down matched funds from Enterprise Ireland as a result of this.