Ireland’s four EU|BICs collaborate to deliver the capital infrastructure no single EU|BIC could sustain alone

Ireland has four certified EU|BICs. AxisBIC is in the south and midwest, Furthr in Dublin and surrounding counties, Propelor in the southeast, and WestBIC in the west, northwest and midlands. Together they cover the whole country. Each operates independently, with its own regional focus, its own programmes and, in some cases, its own investment funds. What they share is a model of collaboration that produces results none of them could achieve alone.

The network

The four EU|BICs in Ireland form the Irish BICs. Their collaboration is supported by Enterprise Ireland and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Their collective mission is to identify and accelerate Irish-based startups with the ambition and capacity to scale internationally. They do this through a combination of direct funding support, investor readiness programmes, one-to-one business consultancy and access to private and public investment networks.

In 2025, they published a joint impact report, making the scale of their shared contribution visible:

Between 2022 and 2024, the four BICs engaged with more than 1,000 new clients. They supported 143 successful applications to Enterprise Ireland’s Pre-Seed Start Fund (PSSF), representing 68% of all PSSF awards nationally. They supported 157 successful applications to the Innovative High Potential Start-Up fund (iHPSU), representing 59% of all iHPSU awards in Ireland. Together, they approved over 300 funding applications in that period. In 2025 alone, companies supported by the Irish BICs raised €34 million in funding, made up of €26.5 million in iHPSU investment and €7.5 million in PSSF, supporting 110 startups across the country.

The iHPSU figure carries specific weight: it is an equity investment designed for companies with a credible path to 10 jobs and €1 million in export sales within three years. Every award is, by design, a company building towards internationalisation. The Irish EU|BICs helped nearly six in ten of those companies nationally get there.

Stories of support

Among Propelor’s clients is Eirgen Pharma, a research-driven pharmaceutical company specialising in high-potency oral dose medicines, including cancer chemotherapy drugs. Eirgen is still based in Waterford. It now serves patients in over 60 countries, across major markets in the United States, Europe and Japan. In 2015, OPKO Health, a US-listed healthcare company, acquired it.

WestBIC covers counties where investor networks are thin, and the distance to Dublin is real. Between 2022 and 2025, it helped regional companies raise €48.7 million. Among them is ByoWave, which secured HPSU funding through WestBIC’s support to bring an accessible gaming controller for disabled gamers to market.

AventaMed, a Cork-based medical device company, was supported by AxisBIC from its early days through its HPSU application and successive investment rounds via the Boole Investment Syndicate, before being acquired by KARL STORZ. The Boole Syndicate is AxisBIC’s most distinctive instrument: over 50 experienced investors collaborating on pre-screened deals, completing 80 investments and leveraging €15 million in angel capital into €36 million in total investment. At its annual Venture Academy, companies pitch against live funding targets; in 2026, €9.5 million was committed, up from €5.7 million the year before.

Furthr operates its own venture capital fund, investing at Seed to Series A stage in B2B software and MedTech, with €19 million invested across the portfolio. Klearcom, an AI-based customer call path testing platform, shows what cross-BIC collaboration produces. Propelor worked with Klearcom to develop its fundraising strategy and structure its raise; Furthr VC provided the capital in an oversubscribed seed round alongside HBAN’s Bloom syndicate and Enterprise Ireland. In November 2025, Klearcom was acquired by Synova, a UK private equity firm. Two EU|BICs collaborated on one company’s journey from its first funding round to international exit.

What it all adds up to

The Irish BICs chose to collaborate, and the data shows what that choice produces. They jointly deliver programmes that none could sustain alone. They cover the full geography of Ireland, which means that a company in Sligo has access to the same programme infrastructure and the same investor network as a company in Dublin.

The European Commission’s own data documents how far Europe lags in early-stage capital. In Ireland, four EU|BICs chose to close that gap together.