Thursday next, 15th October will see the announcement of the overall winner of the High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) Founder of the Year Award for 2026, at an awards ceremony at the Salesforce Tower in Dublin.
This year, 38 High Potential Start-ups were eligible for the award, with the list now narrowed down to five finalists: Breda O’Regan, Lia EyeCare; Mark Birrane, WONDR Jellies; Robert Norton, Kaptea; Seán Kirwan, MedWrite AI; and Leah Fletcher, Dunbar Pharma.
The Founder of the Year award forms an important element of the Enterprise Ireland HPSU Founders Forum. Now in its 11th year, the forum, which is delivered in partnership with Select Strategies, continues to grow with over 500 founders having participated to date from a variety of sectors including digital technologies, medical devices, fintech, food, engineering and construction. The objective of the forum is to provide a platform for founders to help founders succeed internationally and scale faster.
FINALISTS
Breda O’Regan is co-founder and CEO of Lia EyeCare, an Irish eyecare technology company developing science-backed solutions that work in harmony with the body.
Former League of Ireland footballer, Mark Birrane, who is the founder and CEO of WONDR, the Irish brand redefining the sweets category with great-tasting jellies that deliver all the enjoyment of traditional sweets, with added nutritional benefits like being low sugar, high protein and high fibre.
Robert Norton is co-founder and CTO of Kaptea, the company behind Pronto, a journey orchestration platform built on Twilio. Pronto runs workflows and AI across every communication channel, connecting people, AI agents and business systems to orchestrate critical customer journeys end to end.
Seán Kirwan is CEO of MedWrite AI. Hospitals use MedWrite to safely deploy and manage AI agents that automate clinical documentation, coding and administrative workflows, completing tasks up to 10x faster. MedWrite works with public and private healthcare organisations across Ireland and has raised over €1 million in funding.
Leah Fletcher, who is founder and CEO of Dunbar Pharma, Ireland’s first EU GMP-certified cannabinoid pharmaceutical manufacturer.
On 15th October, the final winner will be selected by a panel of judges: namely, Heidi Davis, CEO and founder of Peri, Founder of the Year 2024; Dan Fox, Strategic Advisor of Eudia and co-founder, Johnson Hana (former CEO), and Donnchadh Cullinan, Divisional Manager for Technology, Services and Consumer, Enterprise Ireland.
