The Irish AI Startup Conference 2026

The Irish AI Startup Conference 2026 is a highly curated event, gathering 50 VCs and Irish AI Startup Founders for a full day of discussion, learning & networking. Where: Convention Centre Dublin When: Wednesday, 2nd of December, 2026, 9:00am-5:00pm Theme: The AI Startup Imperative: Building Defensible Moats, Securing Funding & Scaling Technical Teams. A Highly Curated Audience Our curated audience AI events receive close to 5/5 feedback, which is why attendance will be strictly limited to: 70 AI Startup Founders & CTOs (NI and ROI-based, early-stage, selected from 700 applications) 10 Ecosystem Stakeholders (Accelerators, Angel Syndicates, Incubators, Government, etc) 20 Venture Capital Investors (maximum two per firm; partner and principal level only) This event follows the model of The London AI Startup Conference 2025, a highly successful event hosted at Google London, with 127 high-quality attendees chosen from 2,300 applications. Audience curation resulted in very high attendee ratings, speakers included top VCs and unicorn founders, and a 2026 sequel has been confirmed. European AI Conference This event is hosted as a dedicated track within the larger European AI Conference 2026, allowing 50 startup and VC attendees to enjoy an intimate, peer-level summit while also having the opportunity to network with 250 of Europe’s top AI Builders, Enterprise Strategists & Product Leaders during networking sessions. Agenda (Link) Confirmed Panellists: Brian McGeough, Chief Information Officer, Creditsafe Manuela Locarno Ajayi, SVP and Board Member, TomTom Philipp Nieland, Co-Founder, Nikulipe; Co-Founder, PPRO Dave Fleming, Founder, Stealth Irish AI Startup & VC Track Roundtable Moderators: Mary Rodgers, CEO, Portershed Martina Fitzgerald, CEO, Scale Ireland Frank Brennan, CEO, Republic of Work Niamh Sterling, All-Island Director, HBAN Barry Brennan, Venture Partner, Elkstone Faye Walsh Drouillard, Founder & Managing Partner, WakeUp Capital Eric Risser, CTO & Co-Founder, Shepherd Werner Schmidt, CEO & Co-Founder, Lative Amy Neale, General Partner, Delta Partners VC Eamon Curtin, Director Start-Ups & Entrepreneurship / IGNITE Programme Director, University College Cork European Startup Hub Track Roundtable Moderators: Liam Cronin, Director of Innovation, University College Dublin Jean Arnaud, Director of AI Programmes, ESMT Berlin Niamh Collins, Centre Director, The Guinness Enterprise Centre Eoghan Powell, Innovation Centre Director, WorkIQ Ronan Cunningham, Director, DCU:Innovate Greg De Temmerman, PhD., Managing Director, Deeptech & Ecosystem, Techleap Karsten Deppert, Co-Founder, E-commerce Park of Scandinavia Gil Azevedo, Executive Director,  Unicorn Factory Lisboa Product Track Roundtable Moderators: Alan Clarke, Chief of Product and Trading, Flutter Dervilla Mullan, VP of Product, Sprout Social Fionn Delahunty, Head of Product, Synthflow AI Kevin Stembridge, Head of Strategy, Körber Pharma Gus Iwanaga, VP of Product - Commerce, commercetools Jeferson Zanim, Chief Product Officer, Mater Private Network Somnath Biswas, Head of AI Products, The AA Ryan Jude Soosayraj, VP, Mindset AI; Ex-Product Leader at Cognizant, Indeed & Workshare Florence Jumpp, Chief Product Officer, Bite Mark Brophy, AI Product Leader; Ex-Product Leader at Genesys, TripAdvisor and Ding Haidee McMahon, CPO | Head of Labs, EIDA Solutions John Martin, Chief Product Officer, Flagstone AI Builder Track Roundtable Moderators: Alan Smeaton, Professor of Computing, Dublin City University Siddhant Mohapatra, Head of Global Data & Analytics - AI, Trust & Safety, Ads, Vendor Management, Legal, Ops, Pinterest Emanuele Sparvoli, Senior Director of IT, Fin Nitin Sinha, Director, Principal AI Architect - Forward Deployed Engineering - Applied AI, Service Now Barry Duffy, VP Digital & Data, FINEOS Shay Weiss, Director of Engineering & AI Transformation, Walgreens Boots Alliance Tiago Nascimento, Head of IT Delivery, HCLTech Kevin Collins, Founder, echofold Andrea Farber, VP, Software & Data Engineering | Financial Crime Solutions, Mastercard Clive Foley, Director of AI engineering, Marsh McLennan Agency Enterprise AI Strategy Track Roundtable Moderators: Grainne Maycock, Chief Revenue Officer, Acolad Group Denis Vukosav, VP of Technology - AI Strategy & Transformation, State Street Mina Henein, Ph. D., VP of Artificial Intelligence at The Citco Group Stanislava Trajlov, Head of Data, Vhi Niall Byrne, VP Autonomous Networks, Amdocs Manuela Locarno Ajayi, SVP and Board Member, TomTom Satyanarayana Vuppala, Head of Gen AI Security, Dun & Bradstreet A Proven Model: London AI Startup Conference The London AI Startup Conference 2025 was a highly successful event hosted at Google London, with 127 attendees chosen from 2,300 applications. Audience curation resulted in feedback of nearly 5/5, and a 2026 sequel has already been confirmed. As a Dublin company we are eager to bring this model to Ireland. Our speakers included Unicorn Founders, VCs, and more: Esha Vasta, Partner at Mercuri Angela Chou, Investor at Felix Capital Lucile Cornet, Partner at Eight Roads Edward Keelan, Partner at Octopus Ventures Razvan Ranca, Co-Founder & CTO of Tractable Emma Burrows, Co-Founder & CTO of Portia AI Sebastian Hunte, Investment Director at AlbionVC Barry Downes, Managing Partner at Sure Valley Ventures Georgina Owens, Former CTO of William Hill International and Playnetic Dipesh Savani, Chief Venture Capital Officer of The Saudi Investment Bank The Audience Breakdown Startup Founders (65): Predominantly UK-based (92%). These founding teams were highly technical, frequently led by CTOs holding PhDs from Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, and UCL. CTOs & Tech Leaders (23): Top-tier technical minds shaping the future of European tech. Investors (21): Active VCs and Angel investors, participating both as attendees and roundtable leaders. Speakers & Moderators (14): Including exited founders (e.g., Tractable, Portia Labs) and Partners from major funds. Ecosystem