Latest news with #Assiduous
Irish Post
22-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Post
Irish start-up secures €1m in funding to launch new AI-enabled financial software solution
AN Irish start-up has secured a €1m investment to launch a new online financial service solution. Founded by investment bankers Fergal Meegan and Barry Murphy, Assiduous Corp Ltd is preparing to launch its Corporate Finance AutopilotTM product. The virtual corporate finance service-as-a-software solution, which is enabled by AI, 'bridges the gap between business owners and capital markets' the firm claims. Pictured L-R Assiduous co-founders, Fergal Meegan and Barry Murphy with Conor O'Donovan, Head of Start-ups at Enterprise Ireland 'The Corporate Finance AutopilotTM supports small and medium sized companies preparing for strategic, financing and liquidity transactions with a whole of lifecycle approach,' the firm explains. Headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin, Assiduous secured the funds through a private investment round, with the support of the Enterprise Ireland High-Potential Start-Up (HPSU) funding. 'Assiduous secured the funding to bring its AI native solution to market and to execute on its product development roadmap through 2025 and 2026,' an Enterprise Ireland spokesperson said. The company will also use the funding to expand its technical team, to take advantage of the latest advances in agentic AI and recruit product and engineering talent with a passion for applying AI to high value use cases. 'Businesses are at a pivotal moment in the application of technology to the provision of professional services,' Mr Meegan, who is Chief Executive Officer at Assiduous, said. 'We are only scratching the surface with the value that can be created for business owners from leveraging AI to do more with less,' he added. 'Assiduous is focused on embedding corporate advisory domain expertise at the application layer to unlock the power of foundation models for many more small and medium sized business owners seeking to contemplate, plan and execute high value corporate actions.' Conor O'Donovan, Head of Start-ups at Enterprise Ireland, has desribed Assiduous as an "excellent example of a forward-thinking Irish start-up that is using cutting-edge technology to address a massive unmet market need". "The company's growth plans aligns with Enterprise Ireland's new five-year strategy Delivering for Ireland, Leading Globally, with a key objective to support and enable SMEs to engage with the start-up ecosystem, to execute financing and strategic transactions and to grow the next generation of Irish multinational corporations,' he added.
Irish Times
22-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Coffee drinkers face new price hikes and the latest Trump tariff twists
Bad news for coffee drinkers this morning, as they face further price hikes. Reduced harvests from key producers continue to drive up prices, restaurants have warned, with cafes now charging up to €4 for a cup of regular coffee after sustained price rises since 2020. Barry O'Halloran has the story. Donald Trump's tariffs put stock markets in a spin and sparked a sell-off in US government debt. So what does all of this mean for your pension ? Conor Pope examines the implications in our Your Money feature. In our Your Money Q&A, a reader is considering selling their two rental properties and purchasing one in a Dublin suburb that they might eventually downsize to when the leave their own home. They wonder about the tax and other implications of such a move. Dominic Coyle offers some guidance. High profile social media influencers can earn lots of money by promoting brands to their many followers online but various regulators and Revenue have started reminding them about the obligations that come with such a career, including paying tax on the income. Bernice Harrison looks at the regulation of this burgeoning sector in our media column. READ MORE In Me & My Money, music publisher Johnny Lappin tells Tony Clayton-Lea about the time he was 'scammed by a rogue so-called roofing contractor' and 'foolishly paid him in cash'. Irish start-up Assiduous has raised €1 million in funding for its development, which its founders hope will eventually lead to a stock market listing. Hugh Dooley has the details. Another week, another victim of Trump-related uncertainty – AI giant Nvidia . Stocktake looks at the reasons behind its share tumble last week. Stay up to date with all our business news: sign up to our Business Today daily email news digest. If you'd like to read more about the issues that affect your finances try signing up to On the Money , the weekly newsletter from our personal finance team, which will be issued every Friday to Irish Times subscribers.
Irish Times
22-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
‘We want to list our own business and grow it as a public company', says Irish fintech founder after €1m funding round
Irish fintech startup Assiduous is hoping to make corporate finance advice more accessible for SMEs following a successful funding round in which the company raised €1 million to support its development. And the company's founders are hoping this will help it on its journey to an eventual stock market initial public offering (IPO). After working for 20 years in corporate finance, Fergal Meegan told The Irish Times he wanted to find a way to give that same advice to companies earlier in their life cycle without the prohibitive costs for smaller companies. 'The goal is to make corporate finance advice accessible for smaller businesses,' he said. Mr Meegan founded the company with his long-time colleague Barry Murphy, to fill a gap in the market instead of trying to to compete with the major corporate advisory firms. 'Access to corporate finance advice is far beyond the average business owner,' he said. 'The vision for this business is to democratise access to that advice. When you get to enterprise level, you have the resources to pay whoever for whatever advice you need. But when you're on the journey [...] you can't afford that.' READ MORE Based out of NovaUCD , Assiduous has just launched its virtual corporate finance software service, Corporate Finance Autopilot. This seeks to support SMEs preparing for strategic, financing and liquidity transactions with the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Mr Meegan said the funding would allow the company to expand its technical team across 2025 and 2026 and to 'build the company for the next few years. That's what the money is for, as we try to inject three decades of domain expertise into the platform.' 'There are Silicon Valley paradigms around 'move fast and break things' but this is business owners and their businesses. There is no chance we want to move too fast and break anything for our customers. It's just too important.' [ UCD professor develops monitoring device that could help prevent stillbirths Opens in new window ] The founders are targeting growth to €1 million in recurring revenue over the next two years. 'After that, very quickly we want to go from €1 million to €10 million in revenue,' Mr Meegan said. The NovaUCD spin-off is collaborating with Euronext Group to facilitate access for Irish companies to markets earlier in their life cycle. 'We have been involved in the listing of more businesses in Dublin than anyone else, so we want to list our own business and grow it as a public company, to create an Irish multinational. We are not building this for sale, we are building the company to endure. All of the sustainable principles we have for our customers are the same principles that we want to grow this business.' The company has received support from Enterprise Ireland and is part of the European Institute for Technology Digital's Equity Portfolio. EIT Digital's interim head of acceleration and growth, Dénes Csiszár, said the company had 'prospects to solve some of Europe's critical strategic and financing challenges for SMEs using the latest artificial intelligence innovations'.
