Assiduous Named a Finalist for Enterprise Ireland’s 2025 HPSU Founder of the Year Award

(opens in a new window)Assiduous, a capital markets fintech company headquartered at NovaUCD, has today been named as a finalist for Enterprise Ireland’s 2025 High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) Founder of Year Award.

Assiduous’ Corporate Finance Autopilot^TM, a virtual corporate finance service-as-a-software solution, enabled by the latest AI advances, bridges the gap between business owners and capital markets. The Corporate Finance Autopilot^TM supports small and medium sized companies preparing for strategic, financing and liquidity transactions with a whole of lifecycle approach.

Earlier this year the company founded by experienced investment bankers Fergal Meegan and Barry Murphy raised €1 million in funding from a number of experienced business owners and executives, with the support of Enterprise Ireland High-Potential Start-Up (HPSU) funding.

The Founder of the Year Award forms an important element of (opens in a new window)Enterprise Ireland’s HPSU Founders Forum. Now in its 10^th year the HPSU Founders Forum, which is delivered in partnership with Select Strategies, continues to grow with over 480 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. 

This year, 38 HPSUs were eligible for the Award, which has now narrowed down to five finalists.  The other finalists in addition to Assiduous are; (opens in a new window)Senus, (opens in a new window)Marama Labs, (opens in a new window)Pilot Path, and (opens in a new window)NeuroBell. 

Fergal Meegan, CEO and co-founder, Assiduous said, “We are honoured to be nominated alongside our fellow founders and we couldn’t have brought Assiduous to life in the last couple of years without Enterprise Ireland, its ecosystem of advisers and supports. Enterprise Ireland’s HPSU programme has for more than two decades been a foundational building block for ambitious Irish companies seeking to scale internationally.

2025 has been another formative year for Assiduous, having completed our HPSU funding, launched the Corporate Finance Autopilot® and exceeded our own optimistic expectations with the appetite from early adopters for our AI native corporate finance solution.”

The overall winner of the 2025 Enterprise HSPU Founder of the Year Award will be announced at an awards ceremony which will take place on 16 October at the Salesforce Tower in Dublin.

The overall winner will be selected by a panel of judges, Andreea Wade, General Partner at Delta Partners VC; Brian Shields, CEO & Co-Founder of Neurent Medical; and Tom Cusack, Divisional Manager of Industrial & Life Sciences, Enterprise Ireland.

ENDS

25 September 2025

For further information contact Micéal Whelan, Communications and Media Relations Manager, UCD Research and Innovation, NovaUCD, e: (opens in a new window)miceal.whelan@ucd.ie.