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Practical advice from one Irish founder

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Her scale-up Lios has been through the EIC Accelerator grant funding process and successfully secured €6.25m in 2025. Now, Rhona Togher wants other founders to learn what she wishes she had known.

The EIC Accelerator grant is part of the European Innovation Council’s (EIC) funding framework under Horizon Europe. It acts as a funding mechanism for start-ups and SMEs to drive deep-tech innovation and early-stage innovators that would otherwise be deemed too high-risk for private investors.

The EIC Accelerator is targeted at those whose technology is at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 6 to 8. Companies can apply for a grant component of up to €2.5m and an investment component of between €1m and €10m.

Ireland enjoys a strong track record in European Framework Programmes, winning €1.19bn in funding through Horizon 2020 – Lios being one of them, where we secured €2.3m as part of Horizon 2020.

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When we applied to the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator, we knew it would be competitive. What we didn’t fully appreciate was just how nuanced the process is.

Since then, through our own experience and many conversations with advisers and former recipients, I’ve gathered insights that I wish every founder knew before pressing ‘submit’. If you’re considering applying for the EIC Accelerator, this is for you.

Start with the work programme, not your deck

The single most important document is not your pitch deck. It’s the EIC work programme. If there’s a defined challenge that clearly fits your technology, you are already in a stronger position. The Commission’s priorities shift with each programme – advanced materials, climate, dual use technologies, energy. Alignment isn’t cosmetic, it’s fundamental.

Ask yourself: Does our solution directly address an EU level priority? Can we clearly articulate the impact on Europe, not just our company? The EIC isn’t asking: “Is this clever?” They’re asking: “Is this investable and strategically important for Europe?”

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You don’t need 40 people but you must look investable

There’s a misconception that only large, heavily funded companies win. Not true. Small, focused deep-tech teams, even five to six people, absolutely succeed. What matters is credibility and trajectory.

The reviewer and juror sees a snapshot in time. They are looking for: evidence of real market traction; strong, defensible IP; a team capable of executing; governance beyond the founders; and signs you won’t run out of money next month.

Bridging the ‘valley of death’

The accelerator is designed to bridge TRL 6-8, widely recognised as the hardest funding gap for deep-tech companies. At this stage, your technology works and may have pilot validation, but you are not yet at full commercial scale. In Europe especially, this ‘valley of death’ is where many strong innovations stall – too advanced for research grants, too early for most private investors.

The accelerator is one of the few instruments specifically built to support companies through this high-risk transition, making it an incredibly valuable resource for founders who are genuinely on the cusp of scale.

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Evidence wins

Remote evaluators and juries look at your company through different lenses. Remote evaluators are often focused on technical merit and written clarity. Juries, however, are typically more commercial and investment driven and often tougher. They read everything: the short proposal, the full application, annexes, financials, Freedom To Operate, letters of intent. In a single week, a panel may review up to 15-20 companies, absorbing thousands of pages of material.

So how do you stand out? Be credible. Be concise. Be memorable. Be real.

Avoid volume for the sake of volume. A small number of well-written letters from genuine customers and industrial stakeholders will carry more weight than 20 cookie-cutter letters.

The reviewers and jury are looking for genuine industrial validation, not just lab results. Case studies, pilot outcomes and early commercial traction speak much louder than theoretical demand.

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IP matters more than you think

Intellectual property and your freedom to operate come up time and again. It’s important to demonstrate: you understand the competitive landscape; you know who is patenting in your space; you have a clear strategy around intellectual property; and there is meaningful white space.

The jury interview is an investment pitch, not a PhD viva

This surprises many founders. The jury panel typically includes:

  • Five jury members (often investors/entrepreneurs)
  • An European Investment Bank (EIB) representative
  • An EIC Programme manager
  • An observer and moderator

Most questions are commercial. Who is on your cap table? What is your go-to-market strategy? How will you scale? Tell me about your governance? Is this plan financially robust? And what will be the economic impact of this proposal?

You may have a subject matter expert in the room, but you will almost certainly have multiple investor-type profiles. The underlying question is “Can this become an EU unicorn?” and not “Is this the most elegant piece of science?”.

Governance is a signal of maturity

One recurring theme is governance. Strong juries want to see:

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  • Independent board members
  • Financial oversight
  • Documented decision-making
  • A clear split of executive responsibility

Even if this is your first company (as it was for us), showing that you are intentionally building strong governance structures and surrounding yourself with experienced advisers demonstrates maturity and ambition. It signals that you are growing the company and yourselves with scale in mind.

Alignment with EU priorities is powerful

Demonstrate how your technology strengthens European competitiveness. Impact isn’t just environmental, it’s economic. Consider how you can contribute to wealth generation, jobs and achieve strategic autonomy. Make the European case.

Be memorable for the right reasons

Will the jury remember you? Showcase your technology with warmth, confidence and simplicity.

Preparation is key. Know your business plan inside out, you are likely to encounter some difficult questions and alternative perspectives.

Remember that the jurors are human. Engage in the interview in an authentic and open way. The jurors want to see you do well.

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And finally don’t be discouraged

It’s a really competitive programme, with success rates around 5pc. Sometimes remote evaluators score you highly, and the jury sees it differently. It happens. But strong companies do get funded. And even preparing for the EIC Accelerator, tightening your governance, refining IP strategy, stress testing commercial models – it makes you stronger, regardless of the outcome.

The EIC Accelerator is demanding because it sits at one of the hardest points in a company’s journey, that uncomfortable space between breakthrough and bankability.

If you are there, genuinely there, it can be transformational.

Be honest. Be investable. Be European in your ambition.

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And above all, remember, the jury wants to fund companies that will make Europe stronger.

If that’s you, prepare well, and go for it.

 

By Rhona Togher

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Rhona Togher is co-founder and CEO of Lios, an advanced acoustic materials scale-up based in Dublin. The company secured €6.25m in EIC Accelerator funding in 2025 and is now raising for their Series A.

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Vivo teases the most powerful camera phone ever with a 400mm telephoto lens accessory, but it is just a gimmick?

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  • Vivo revealed its new X300 Ultra phone at MWC
  • The device comes with a 400mm telephoto lens accessory
  • But the leaked Oppo Find X9 Ultra could soon be a strong rival

When people talk about the best camera phones, they usually have something like Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max or Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra in mind — you know, a normal-looking phone with an advanced-yet-unobtrusive camera system on the back. Well, the Vivo X300 Ultra is about to blow all of those expectations away.

Revealed at MWC 2026, Vivo says this device is equipped with a 200-megapixel lens, matching that of last year’s X200 Ultra. But what really catches the eye is the optional 400mm-equivalent Telephoto Extender Gen2 Ultra. This is a clip-on lens made by Zeiss that adds serious zoom capabilities to the phone.

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Irish data security start-up Evervault raises $25m

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The funding will be used to expand Evervault’s encryption infrastructure, invest in product development, and grow its engineering and product teams.

Evervault, a data encryption start-up founded by Irishman Shane Curran, has raised $25m in Series B funding.

The round was led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Next Play Ventures and new investors including Operator Partners. The new round brings the start-up’s total funding to date to $46m.

Evervault builds developer infrastructure to collect, process and share sensitive data.

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The New York and Dublin-based company helps businesses to encrypt and orchestrate sensitive data without ever handling it in plaintext.

“Most compliance frameworks assume sensitive data will exist in plaintext somewhere, but with automated, high-velocity data exchange, that’s a liability,” said Curran, who is also CEO of the company.

“At Evervault, we believe sensitive data should be treated like hazardous material. Systems must be designed so it isn’t touched in the first place.”

Evervault has initially focused on card payments security with a solution that combines encryption with 3D-Secure authentication, network tokens and card data enrichment in a single integration, along with streamlining payment card industry (PCI) compliance.

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The company claimed that on average, its solution helps customers cut PCI data security standard compliance costs by $100,000, achieve compliance 95pc faster and ship secure payment systems “in days rather than weeks”.

The start-up said that since its establishment, it has processed more than $5bn in transaction volume and secured more than four times year-over-year revenue growth.

“Our mission isn’t just about payments,” said Curran in a blogpost announcing the raise yesterday (5 March). “We’re building the trust layer for the internet: a global clearinghouse for sensitive data. A place where companies can share, enrich and route information without taking custody of it. We’re replacing contractual trust with cryptographic guarantees.”

The new funding will be used to expand Evervault’s encryption infrastructure, invest in product development, and grow its engineering and product teams, according to the start-up.

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Founded in Dublin in 2019, Evervault’s roots can be traced back to the 2017 BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition where Curran took home the top prize for his project qCrypt, which was a quantum-secure, encrypted data storage solution with multi-jurisdictional quorum sharing.

Two years later, Evervault secured $3.2m in seed funding, before going on to raise $16m in Series A funding.

Curran previously spoke to SiliconRepublic.com’s Ann O’Dea at a Future Human pop-up event in 2020, where he discussed his experience as a young entrepreneur and the Irish business contingent in Silicon Valley.

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Netflix’s version of Overcooked lets you play as Huntr/x

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Netflix’s library of streamable party games is expanding today with a custom version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat. Netflix launched its cloud gaming program with games like Lego Party and Tetris Time Warp, but Overcooked feels a bit unique because it features a roster of Netflix-affiliated characters from KPop Demon Hunters and Stranger Things.

For the uninitiated, Overcooked plays like a more manic version of Diner Dash, where teams attempt to prepare food together in increasingly elaborate kitchens filled with obstacles. The original version of Overcooked! All You Can Eat was released in 2020, and includes DLC and stages from previous versions of the game. Netflix’s version bundles in the same content, and “10 Netflix celebrity chefs” including “Dustin, Eleven, Lucas, and the Demogorgon from Stranger Things,” and “half-dozen faces from KPop Demon Hunters,” like “Mira, Rumi, Zoey, Jinu, Derpy and Sussie.” Like Netflix’s other streaming games, playing Overcooked also requires you to use a connected smartphone as a controller.

Offering a growing library of streaming games is part of Netflix’s new strategy under Alan Tascan, a former executive from Epic Games. Tascan took over as Netflix’s President of Games in 2024, and appeared to start revamping the company’s plans not long after, cancelling the release of several mobile games and reportedly shutting down its AAA game studio. Netflix is also continuing to adapt video games into content for its platform. For example, A24 is reportedly developing a game show based on Overcooked for the streaming service.

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Valve doesn’t sound confident the Steam Machine will ship in 2026

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As part of a Year in Review blog detailing changes Valve made to Steam in 2025, the company shared a minor update on its hardware plans that doesn’t sound good for anyone hoping to buy a Steam Machine, Steam Controller or Steam Frame in 2026. Specifically, the company is now opening up the possibility its new hardware won’t ship this year at all.

In February, when Valve acknowledged the ongoing memory and storage shortage had delayed the launch of its hardware and could lead to higher prices, the company was still committing to a (fairly wide) window of when its hardware would ship:

“Our goal of shipping all three products in the first half of the year has not changed. But we have work to do to land on concrete pricing and launch dates that we can confidently announce, being mindful of how quickly the circumstances around both of those things can change.”

As of the company’s latest post, however, things somehow sound even less certain. “We hope to ship in 2026, but as we shared recently, memory and storage shortages have created challenges for us,” Valve wrote in its Year in Review post. “We’ll share updates publicly when we finalize our plans!”

While Valve’s air of secrecy can make it easy to read too much into the limited information the company does share, moving from “the first half of the year” to “[hoping] to ship in 2026” certainly gives it wiggle room to not release new hardware this year. And considering the difficulties other companies are facing sourcing memory and storage, it wouldn’t be all that surprising.

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HP said in February that RAM accounts for a third of its PC costs, and industry analysts expect the RAM shortage could radically alter the PC landscape as companies are forced to raise prices. Valve’s already struggling to keep the Steam Deck in stock due to its issues securing RAM, it stands to reason sourcing components for even more devices wouldn’t make that process any easier. Then again, the company hasn’t updated its launch timing FAQ, so there’s still reason to hope the Steam Machine ships in 2026.

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One Sailing Pulley To Rule Them All

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When thinking of humanity’s ability to harness wind energy, many people will conjure images of windmills from places like The Netherlands or Persia. But people have been using wind energy for far longer than that in the form of sailing ships. Using the wind for transportation goes back another four thousand years or so, but despite our vast experience navigating the seas with wind alone there is still some room for improvement. Many modern sailboats use a number of different pulleys to manage all of the rigging, but this new, open-source pulley can replace many of them.

The pulley, or “block” as they are sometimes called, is built with a polymer roller made out of a type of nylon, which has the benefit of being extremely durable and self-lubricating but is a bit expensive. Durability and lack of squeakiness is important in sailing applications, though. The body is made from CNC-machined aluminum and is composed of two parts, which pivot around the pulley’s axis to allow various ropes (or “lines”) to be inserted without freeing one end of the rope. In testing, this design outperformed some proprietary stainless steel pulleys of similar size.

Another perk of this design is that it can be set up to work in many different applications on a sailboat, whether that’s for hoisting a mainsail or pulling in a jib or any other task a pulley could be used for. It can also be stacked with others in many different configurations to build custom pulleys of almost any type, and can support up to 14 mm lines. For a sailor this could be extremely valuable, because as it stands each pulley on a ship tends to be used in only certain applications, and might also be proprietary from a specific company. This pulley is being released into the open-source world, allowing anyone to create them who wants one.

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Thanks to [Keith] for the tip!

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Seagate is now shipping HAMR disk drives holding up to 44TB of data

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Seagate introduced the Mozaic 3+ platform in 2024, turning the heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) dream into a real product for customers in need of massive storage capacities. The HDD maker is now introducing the next-generation Mozaic 4+ drives, which offer capacities up to 44TB.
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Apple thinks it can lure in the 'Apple curious' for $599

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Apple has made it pretty clear that it wants to siphon off Android and Windows users, and it’s doing it by adopting an aggressive, “budget-friendlier” model across nearly its entire ecosystem.

Large bold blue price text reading $599 with layered rainbow-colored shadows on a solid black background
Apple is using $599 devices to grow its ecosystem

When I first entered the Apple ecosystem, it was when I bought an iPhone 4 in 2011 — I got it right after the 4s made its debut. I don’t remember exactly what I paid, but I know it was less than the initial $199 price tag.
And back then, I thought that was a completely asinine amount of money to pay for a phone. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, I had more money in my pocket than brains in my head, so I bought it just the same.
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Anthropic will fight US ‘supply chain risk’ designation in court

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Anthropic confirmed it has been designated a ‘supply chain risk’ by the US administration, and said it has no choice but to challenge in the courts.

Despite ongoing talks between Anthropic and the US Department of Defense, Anthropic confirmed last night it had received a letter from defense secretary Pete Hegseth confirming the ‘supply chain risk’ designation that had been threatened.

“Yesterday (March 4) Anthropic received a letter from the Department of [Defense] confirming that we have been designated as a supply chain risk to America’s national security,” wrote co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei last night in an official statement. “We do not believe this action is legally sound, and we see no choice but to challenge it in court.”

Amodei was quick to point out that “even supposing it was legally sound”, the limited application of the designation means the “vast majority” of its customers will be unaffected by the move. He said the restriction clearly only applied to the use of Claude by customers as a direct part of contracts with the US defense department, “not all use of Claude by customers who have such contracts”.

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“The Department’s letter has a narrow scope, and this is because the relevant statute is narrow, too,” wrote Amodei. “It exists to protect the government rather than to punish a supplier.”

As with previous statements, Amodei strikes a conciliatory tone, saying Anthropic is committed to US national security and will offer continuing support from its engineers to ensure a smooth transition from Claude “for as long as we are permitted to do so”.

Anthropic drew the ire of the US administration after a standoff with the Pentagon, where Anthropic refused to change its safeguards related to using its AI for fully autonomous weapons, or for mass surveillance of US citizens.

With many in Silicon Valley supporting its relatively principled stand, and general users sending it to the top of the US Apple charts in recent days for free downloads – beating OpenAI’s ChatGPT for the first time – its flagship Claude.ai and Claude Code apps went down for around three hours on 2 March due to “unprecedented demand”.

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Claude Cowork in particular was already becoming the darling of AI enthusiasts in the professional world, and Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Anthropic was on track to generate annual revenue of almost $20bn, more than double its run rate from late 2025, signalling the rapid growth at the AI company which is today valued at around $380bn.

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Tinder settles age discrimination lawsuit for $60 million, see if you qualify for a payout

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According to the plaintiff, Tinder charged users aged 29 and older more for premium subscriptions such as Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold, while offering cheaper rates for the same services to users in their teens and 20s. The lawsuit claimed the tiered pricing model violated multiple California laws, including the…
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Cognizant TriZetto breach exposes health data of 3.4 million patients

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Cognizant TriZetto breach exposes health data of 3.4 million patients

TriZetto Provider Solutions, a healthcare IT company that develops software and services used by health insurers and healthcare providers, has suffered a data breach that exposed the sensitive information of over 3.4 million people.

The firm, which has been operating under the Cognizant umbrella since 2014, disclosed that it detected suspicious activity on a web portal on October 2, 2025, and launched an investigation with the help of external cybersecurity experts.

The investigation revealed that unauthorized access began nearly a year before, on November 19, 2024.

During the exposure period, the threat actors accessed records relating to insurance eligibility verification transactions, which are part of the process providers use to confirm a patient’s insurance coverage before treatment.

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The types of data that have been exposed vary per individual, and may include one or more of the following:

  • Full names
  • Physical address
  • Date of birth
  • Social Security number
  • Health insurance member number
  • Medicare beneficiary identifier
  • Provider name
  • Health insurer name
  • Demographic, health, and insurance information

Affected providers were alerted on December 9, 2025, but customer notification started in early February 2026. According to a filing Maine’s Attorney General submitted today, the number of exposed individuals is 3,433,965.

TriZetto says that payment card, bank account, or other financial information was not exposed in this incident.

Also, the company is not aware of any cases where cybercriminals have attempted to misuse this information.

TriZetto says it has taken steps to strengthen cybersecurity on its systems and informed law enforcement authorities of the incident.

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Notification recipients are offered free 12-month coverage of credit monitoring and identity protection services from Kroll to help mitigate risks arising from compromised data.

BleepingComputer has contacted TriZetto to learn more about the nature of the security breach and why the firm delayed notifications to consumers for several months, but we have not received a response by publication time.

No ransomware groups have taken responsibility for the attack yet, and no data leaks linked to TriZetto have appeared on underground forums.

Cognizant itself was rumored to have suffered a Maze ransomware breach in 2020. In June 2025, Clorox sued the IT firm for gross negligence after it allegedly let Scattered Spider operatives into its network following a social engineering attack in September 2023.

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Malware is getting smarter. The Red Report 2026 reveals how new threats use math to detect sandboxes and hide in plain sight.

Download our analysis of 1.1 million malicious samples to uncover the top 10 techniques and see if your security stack is blinded.

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