IDA chairperson Feargal O’Rourke said results indicate that the agency’s strategy is working despite an ‘increasingly turbulent world’.
Qualcomm, Apple and Monzo are among the 190 global businesses that made Irish investments in the first half of this year. Collectively, these deals are expected to create nearly 10,500 jobs, according to data from IDA Ireland.
Agency chairperson Feargal O’Rourke said that this quarter’s “very positive results” and last year’s “record performance” indicate that the agency’s five-year strategy ‘Adapt Intelligently’ is “fit for purpose” in an “increasingly turbulent world”.
The agency, which facilitates foreign investments in Ireland, reported that investment activity over H1 pointed to a “strong concentration” of next-generation technology projects.
During that time, companies including Trading 212 and Block selected Ireland as their European launchpad and a base for regional headquarters.
Among the 190 investors, 54 are first-timers, while nearly 40 companies expanded their existing operations, IDA said.
Several hundreds of millions of euros were invested regionally so far this year, including Novo Nordisk’s €432m spend to expand its manufacturing capacity in Athlone and Qualcomm’s €125m investment to further develop its Cork site. 52pc of the total investments made by IDA client companies consist of regional projects.
AI makes an unsurprising appearance in the data, with major investments from Anthropic, which announced 200 jobs as part of its Dublin expansion, and Rippling, which opened a new Dublin office to create 150 jobs to meet demand for AI-native workforce intelligence across EMEA.
Marketing automation company Klaviyo announced in April that it was building out its engineering team in Dublin, after previously announcing 100 jobs. US software company MongoDB also announced 200 jobs in the same month amid a multimillion-dollar push towards agentic AI applications.
Fintech was particularly active in the first half of this year, with investments from Currenxie, Monzo, CoinJar and Qashio. IDA Ireland said that the activity indicated the country’s “clear strength” in fintech and digital finance.
Canadian enterprise data management company OpenText committed €105m to its Cork and Galway sites last month to create 400 new jobs, marking the single largest investment into Ireland by a technology company headquartered in Canada.
Investment activity during H1 2026 was at a faster pace than overall numbers for 2025, when IDA supported 323 investments into Ireland with commitments for more than 15,000 jobs.
“IDA Ireland’s 2025 results and the investment pipeline secured in the first half of 2026 demonstrate the continued strength of Ireland’s FDI proposition and the confidence global companies have in Ireland as a location to establish, scale and transform,” said IDA CEO Michael Lohan.
“The breadth of investment across technology, life sciences, engineering and financial services sectors, alongside strong regional performance and significant transformational undertakings, reflects the depth of Ireland’s talent, capability and enterprise ecosystem.
“Our focus remains on competing strongly for the next generation of investment and ensuring FDI continues to deliver impact across all regions for the Irish economy.”
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