More than 40 participants from engineering and commercial backgrounds have been confirmed for the second cycle of Founders, a 12-week start-up programme taking place at Dogpatch Labs.

As part of Founders, a technical engineer and a commercial expert are paired before they have an idea and are tasked with building a start-up from scratch with entrepreneurs providing mentorship.

Participants, who this year include professionals from Stripe, Google and NASA alongside graduates from MIT, Stanford and Cambridge, have the opportunity to secure €100,000 in early-stage investment.

Launched as a two-year pilot under the NDRC, Founders has already had an impact, incubating both Inspeq AI, which has raised €1.1m for its AI-driven security platform, and Glitch Ads, which has raised €750,000 in angel funding to scale its ad optimisation technology.

"This is a new kind of Startup Factory for Ireland—a model that taps into one of our greatest untapped resources: transitioning talent from multinationals into impactful startups. The quality of this cohort is really something special," said Amy Neale, partner at Delta VC and a Founders mentor.

Stephen Kinsella, director of immersive software engineering at UL, said: "Talent is the single most important ingredient in any innovation ecosystem.

"Founders unlocks that talent and channels it into impactful start-ups, making it critical to Ireland’s future.”

NDRC is due to close in November after the outgoing government decided to cease funding for the start-up accelerator.

Founders said that new funding is required to sustain and scale its model beyond 2025.

"This model has proven its value, creating startups that wouldn’t exist otherwise with exceptional founding teams," said Bobby Healy, founder and CEO of Manna Drone Delivery.

"Ensuring its future is critical to building a world-class innovation ecosystem for Ireland."

The 2025 cohort will culminate in a showcase or “Demo Day” at Dogpatch Labs later this year, where participants will present their startups to leading investors, ecosystem leaders, and stakeholders.

This year's participants are:

• Ryan Loughran (CEO) - Stanford MBA, 5+ years in McKinsey, leads a team of 30 at Qualtrics
• Renato Boemer (CTO) - Machine Learning Engineer, RB / AI. BA, Neuroscience University of Cambridge
• Brendan Regan (CEO) - Board Member, Plaid Financial Limited. Grew Plaid revenue from 0 to €10m in Europe. Ex-Entrepreneur First.
• Fabia Becaus(CEO) - First place student of M.Sc. in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Trinity College this year
• David Burke (CTO) - VP of Engineering, Inscribe. Former VP of Engineering at Datahug (Acquired by NASDAQ:CALD)
• Justyna Ilczuk (CTO) - Google Software Engineer, leader in Dublin indie hacker community.
• Toby Steele (CTO) - Proven CTO. Engineering Manager, Artomatix acquired by Unity for €60m. Recommended by his former junior Rathe (now CTO of Founders portfolio company Gemell).
• Ojasvi Gupta (CEO) - Ethics in AI Researcher, Forbes Ignite Impact Fellow
• Charlie Campbell (CEO) - Ex-Wayfler and LinkedIn. Most recently Chief Revenue Officer at NY based start-up Hoek Home
• Jo Cheng (CEO) - Senior Product Manager, Google in SF. Recently returned to Ireland.
• Mark Harkin (CEO) - Global VP of Marketing Betdaq, serial side hustles and outlier behaviour.
• Andrew Moore (CEO) - Young agricultural entrepreneur. Built Evogen, AI driven insights into breeding solutions for the dairy industry.
• Brian Colivet (CEO) - 'Zero to one' AI leader, ex-Personio and Meta. Angel investor.
• Andrew Meegan (CEO) - Ex-Palantir engineer, co-founder of SF start-up Feast.
• Collette Doyle (CEO) - Exited COO & Co-Founder of Shelfleet
• Vessy Tasheva (CEO) - Founder of Vessy.com, keynote speaker leading Irish engineering conference
• at ShipItCon
• Richard McGuinness (CEO) - Industry leader. VP of Sales and Head of EMEA, Click Up.
• Alex Gartland (CEO) - Ex-VP at Irish unicorn Workhuman and ex-founder of Piply
• Sharon Malone (CEO) - Highly connected wealth manager at Davy, Dublin Chamber Council member.
• Sean Mc Garry (CEO) - Creator of ShowerGem, €10m+ sales and €4m net profit.
• Afiya Titus (CEO) - Serial entrepreneur including Coco Financial which has empowered 1,000 plus businesses with their finance needs.
• Andrew Toner (CEO) - #1 sales hire and performer Outmin transforming their sales function.
• Louise McKiernan (CEO) - #1 Engineering and Management Masters in Trinity College. Co-founder of Female Engineering Mentorship community.
• Orla Shanahan (CEO) - Published Medical Doctor (Psychiatrist) at St. Vincent’s, Computer Science Graduate. Ex-Microsoft.
• Joseph Folkes (CTO) - Emerging g leader in AI. Masters of Engineering, Imperial College. Engineering Leaders Scholar, Royal Academy of Engineering
• Dennj Osele (CTO) - Machine Learning Engineer, Amazon.
• Raymond Lúí Smyth (CTO) - Director of Product, Generative and AI Tooling, Shuttershock
• Dennis Willie (CTO) - Fast moving energetic builder. Software Engineer, Amazon Web Services.
• Gordon Rudman (CTO) - CTO, Saascade - no-code platform for software developers.
• Marcus O'Connell (CTO) - CTO and Co-founder of Nexala, acquired by Trimble Inc. (NASDAQ: TRMB).
• Bruno St John (CTO) - Young genius hacker, one of the most gifted builders our community has ever seen.
• Evan Gordon (CTO) - Strong recommendation from community CEO of StoreHero.
• Chirag Joshi (CTO) - Young ambitious software engineer who came 3rd place in the BT Young Scientist and top 10 STEM students in Ireland
• Conall Walsh (CTO) - Worked as part of NASA Electrical Testbed development at just 19
• Eoin Gahan (CTO) - 1.1 Masters from UCD for his research on solar satellites
• Pramodith Ballapuram (CTO) - AI Thought Leader, Senior AI Engineer Linkedin
• Jeferson Oliveria (CTO) - Lead SRE at Fivetran, over 50 paying SMB customers on his own in the last month.
• Jackson Helio De Cerqueira (CTO) - Serial CTO. Most recently, Co-founder and CTO at Só Vaquinha Boa
• Nikhil Pati (CTO) - Young dynamic builder. Senior Software Developer, Mastercard

(Pic: Supplied)