Redesdale leads new investment in Irish AI ‘foodtech’ firm Talio
Article Published: Thu 13 Nov 2025 at 00:30 | independent.ie
Talio's Ciaran O’Connor and Oran O’Flynn
The John Conroy-led Redesdale Food Fund has backed an investment in Irish AI start-up Talio Technologies Limited.
The deal is understood to involve a seven-figure investment. Talio’s platform uses AI agents to gather and analyse large-scale menu, retail and social data, feeding it back to industry where innovation, category, marketing and R&D teams can use it to make faster and more informed decisions. Customers include industry heavyweights Kerry Group and Valeo.
The business was founded in Dublin by Oran O’Flynn and Ciaran O’Connor. The Redesdale Food & Beverage Fund – founded by former Merrion Capital boss John Conroy and backed by Enterprise Ireland, Musgrave, Coca-Cola, Monaghan Mushrooms and Tate & Lyle – targets early-stage food, beverage, nutrition and food technology companies.
| This is very exciting for Redesdale, as it brings the fund into the AI space in food.
In 2023, Redesdale backed a rescue deal for Eat Feed Limited, which trades as Fiid, investing €350,000 to fund its emergence from the State’s small-firm rescue scheme, Scarp. Other investments include Soothing Solutions, an Irish startup that developed a dissolvable honey-based jelly pop to provide soothing relief for children with sore throats.
Redesdale partner Michael Cantwell said the Talio deal represented an opportunity to move into the fast-developing AI space. “This is a very exciting opportunity for Redesdale as it brings us into the AI technology space in food, and we are partnering with first-class entrepreneurs in Oran and Ciaran, who have shown tremendous drive and skill to bring this product to market,” he said.
Meanwhile, another early-stage investor, the Boole Angel Investment Syndicate, based at the NSC Campus in Cork, is looking to boost its membership amid a 50% increase in investments in the past year. The syndicate is inviting active and potential investors to a membership event at the NSC Campus in Mahon, Cork, on November 26.
The Boole Syndicate is a not-for-profit organisation that facilitates angel investment into high-growth start-ups. There are currently 38 active members, with a goal to increase that to 50 by April 2026. The syndicate has invested €15m in Irish start-ups since its establishment in 2012, including AventaMed, Ovagen, Gasgon Medical, OncoAssure, JustTip, FlexiDrive and eIDeasy.
Boole’s chair, Shemas Eivers, has invested in over 70 companies to date. He said investors joining the syndicate benefit from a flexible investment model, with typical angel investments ranging from €5,000 to €25,000-plus into between three and eight companies per year, investing as a group.