DC Cahalane is a Venture Partner at Sure Valley Ventures working on SVV’s activities across the Republic of Ireland – both in terms of finding the next generation of technology startups to invest in and also working with private investors looking to invest in the next generation of AI companies through Sure Valley Venture’s Irish fund. 

Across the last 20+ years DC has founded four companies and also led growth, partnerships, sales and marketing across a number of high profile startups and scaleups, such as Teamwork.com and Trustev. He also founded the largest startup and innovation hub, Republic of Work, is his home city of Cork, Ireland. Most recently he served as Group Chief Marketing Officer at Dogpatch, one of Europe’s leading Innovation Hubs, recognised as one of the world’s leading startup incubators. 

One of the best known figures in Ireland’s startup ecosystem, DC is a founding council member of Scale Ireland, Ireland’s representative body for innovation driven enterprises and also a Irish government appointment to the Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum and the SME Growth and Entrepreneurship Taskforce,  where he advises government on policy around entrepreneurship and technology. An experienced Board Member and Non-Executive Director, DC has served on a large number of boards of private companies and industry organisations. 

DC is very passionate about helping people start and scale their own businesses and in his not-so-spare time has helped more than 250 startups across the globe get started, get funded and get noticed using his global network of friends and contacts, from west coast USA, right across to China. He’s also a frequent conference speaker and regular guest lecturer at universities in Ireland and overseas.