Elkstone Partners Research
Investment Thesis
Elkstone Partners is Ireland's leading private-markets specialist, combining a wealth-management platform with venture capital, real estate, and cash-management arms. Founded in 2011 in Dublin by Alan Merriman, Ruairí O'Neill and Ciarán McIntyre, the firm has grown to roughly 40 team members and over 500 private-client investors. Its Venture arm, led by Niall McEvoy (Head of Venture), operates Ireland's largest early-stage venture fund and backs "exceptional entrepreneurs with the vision, passion and grit to build category-defining global companies," with an explicit mandate to help indigenous Irish founders scale internationally while remaining headquartered in Ireland. The firm channels private-client and institutional capital (Enterprise Ireland, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund) into EIIS-qualifying venture vehicles that offer investors up to 30% tax relief, layering a retail/wealth distribution engine on top of a traditional early-stage VC strategy.
Stage Focus
Elkstone invests predominantly at Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A. Per third-party portfolio data, the firm has made 28 first-round Seed investments and 17 Series A investments historically, with a handful of Series B and post-IPO/follow-on positions. Its two venture vehicles (Fund I, launched 2022, and Fund II, launched September 2025) are structured as early-stage/pre-Series A funds, though the firm follows on into later rounds for standout portfolio companies (e.g. Equal1's $60M Series A in January 2026).
Check Size
Typical initial checks and led rounds observed in the last two years range roughly €1M to €4M for a full round it leads (e.g. €3M led for Full Health Medical in 2026, $4M led for ZeroRisk in Feb 2025), with average Seed round sizes around $2.3M and average Series A round sizes around $11.6M across its broader portfolio (Elkstone rarely funds an entire round alone at later stages).
Lead Tendency
Elkstone frequently leads its rounds — it explicitly "led" the Full Health Medical, ZeroRisk, Mesh Security and several other seed rounds — supported by co-investors such as Enterprise Ireland, ISIF, and other Irish/European early-stage funds (Sure Valley Ventures, Atlantic Bridge, Europa).
Recent Activity
Elkstone launched Venture Fund II in September 2025, seeking up to €200m as the first all-island (Ireland/Northern Ireland) venture vehicle, building on the €100m Fund I (final closed May 2023) that had deployed into 50+ startups. Fund II's first investment was a €3M round led in Full Health Medical (Irish medtech/clinical health screening) in late 2026. Other recent financings include Equal1's $60M Series A (quantum computing, Jan 2026, Elkstone participating alongside ISIF), WrxFlo's Seed round (Jul 2026, with Enterprise Ireland), NeuroBell's Series A (Jun 2026, with Parkview Health and others), and Overpath's Seed round (Jan 2026, with Sure Valley Ventures). Per Tracxn, Elkstone made 8 investments in 2025 and 5 in 2026 year-to-date, an active and consistent deployment pace of roughly 5-10 first-round investments per year over the past decade.
Portfolio Highlights
Elkstone counts two unicorns in its portfolio — Flipdish (restaurant ordering/management platform) and LetsGetChecked (at-home diagnostics) — plus a public listing (Catapult, ASX) and 14 acquisitions. Notable recent exits include Thirty Madison (virtual-first healthcare, acquired by Remedy Meds for north of $500M, announced September 2025) and Mesh Security (email security for MSPs, acquired by Bitdefender, June 2025). Other portfolio companies span Manna (drone delivery), Bluedrop Medical, Soapbox Labs, Protex AI, ZeroRisk, Inclusio, Allsorter, Danalto, Output Sports, and international investments such as Standard Gas and AudioMob.
Team
- Alan Merriman — Co-Founder & Executive Chairman/Director; CEO at the time of Fund I's 2023 close
- Ruairí O'Neill — Co-Founder
- Ciarán McIntyre — Co-Founder & Head of Real Estate
- Joe Bergin, CFP® — Chief Executive Officer
- Niall McEvoy — Head of Venture / Venture Partner; formerly led Enterprise Ireland's High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) team in ICT for seven years
- Shane Scannell — Chief Financial Officer
- Karl Rogers — Chief Investment Officer
- Sarah Bogossian — Venture Partner
- Barry Brennan — Venture Partner
- Padraig Owens — Partner
- Simon English — Partner
- Nicole McCreery — Partner
- Lynda Carroll — Partner
Decision Process
Elkstone runs a partnership/investment-committee structure across its wealth, venture and real-estate divisions, with the Venture team (Head of Venture plus multiple venture partners and principals) making underwriting and sourcing decisions and a broader partner group overseeing capital deployment via the EIIS fund structures.
Founder Preferences
Elkstone backs Irish (and increasingly all-island/Northern Irish) technical and domain-expert founders building internationally scalable, category-defining companies, with particular experience across health tech, fintech, cybersecurity, and enterprise software. The firm places weight on ESG and genuine societal impact alongside commercial potential, citing portfolio companies like Bluedrop Medical and Inclusio as exemplars.
Geographic Focus
Primarily Ireland (39 of its most recent first-round investments), with a secondary and growing footprint in the UK (5), the US (2) and continental Europe (Germany). Fund II is explicitly positioned as the first "all-island" fund, extending reach into Northern Ireland alongside the Republic. Elkstone's broader wealth platform also gives it exposure to select US and European growth-stage private-market opportunities via co-investment and fund-of-funds structures.