Irish venture capital investment fell sharply in the second quarter, with 20 deals raising $136.4m, according to the latest KPMG Venture Pulse report.
That is despite a strong start to the year with 28 deals raising $668m, fuelled by three major deals that each exceeded the $100m dollar mark.
FinTech continued to attract a significant amount of investment in the first six months of the year with NomuPay raising $77m, Wayflyer raising $35m and IMPT raising $30m respectively.
In total 13 FinTech deals closed in Ireland in the first half of this year worth $173m, an increase from the $140.8m across ten deals seen in the first half of last year.
Gavin Sheehan, Partner, Deal Advisory at KPMG in Ireland, said: "After a robust quarter of investment in Q1’25, including a number of outsized deals, we are experiencing a slowdown in venture capital investment while investors await greater certainty at a macro level particularly in respect of US tariff policy".
He said, Irish startups, particularly in the fintech space, have continued to successfully raise capital during the quarter and there is growing interest in startups developing AI led solutions particularly where applications drive industry specific solutions.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
European and global trends
VC investment in Europe held nearly steady at $14.6 billion in the second quarter, down only slightly from $16.3 billion in the first quarter, despite a drop in deal count from 2,358 to 1,733.
VC investors in Europe continued to show strong interest in startups with clear commercial traction, especially in the AI space -fuelled by EU and national funding initiatives.
Meanwhile, global VC investment fell from $128.4 billion across 9,314 deals in the first three months of the year to $101.05 billion across 7,356 deals in the three months from April to June.
Outlook
"Investor sentiment and outlook for H2 remains cautiously positive, in part because Ireland's VC ecosystem has a strong focus on software companies, which have less direct exposure to US tariff risks causing so much uncertainty globally, but also because of the strength of Ireland’s innovation ecosystem and the positive valuations that have been garnered by Ireland-based startups in recent months," Mr Sheehan said.
