MetHealth CEO Dr Fiona McGillicuddy bagged the runner-up prize.

Substrato Medical, a pre-spin-out business from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, won yesterday’s (6 May) Enterprise Ireland (EI) pitching contest. The winning start-up’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Maeve McCarthy, now has the opportunity to participate in a European market access programme.

Describing her company, McCarthy said that Substrato is a “redefining” oxygen therapy for tissue repair, specifically in venous leg ulcers. Substrato, an EI commercialisation funded project, plans to spin out by the end of this year.

Prior to starting her business, McCarthy spent nearly 10 years at Stryker, working as a programme manager in her last role.

“We’re really starting that journey now of talking to investors and trying to get ourselves out there as a spin-out,” she told SiliconRepublic.com.

Substrato’s Spin-out Showcase Award win at the event shows the “development to date [of] the expertise of the tissue engineering research group (TERG) in RCSI”, McCarthy added. “That’s been huge hugely beneficial to us over the years with our early stage development.”

TERG is also developing new methods to heal spinal cord injuries.

This year, eight companies took part in the live spin-out showcase pitching competition at EI’s Start-Up Day event in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium. The showcase highlighted innovative companies emerging from research activities in Ireland’s third-level institutions.

Participating companies included University College Dublin (UCD) spin-outs MicroJect Bio and Nanoformix; OcuHealth, a joint UCD and South East Technological University project; and Narrative, a Dublin City University spin-out.

MetHealth, a UCD spin-out developing recovery pathways for people suffering with obesity, received the runner-up award. The company’s CEO Dr Fiona McGillicuddy told SiliconRepublic.com that the business stemmed from her research identifying risk signatures in people with obesity.

“That made me think that there might be something special about what we were measuring,” she explained. “We built a technology around that with the help of Enterprise Ireland funding.”

The company’s proprietary biomarker platform, integrated with AI-driven algorithms, delivers critical insight into cardiometabolic health – launching first with a non-invasive, blood-based, in-vitro diagnostic for metabolic liver disease.

“It’s really nice to see other people acknowledge that this is important, that it’s [a] commercial opportunity, that it can have impact … It’s going to give me the confidence to really take that next leap into the next phase of commercialisation,” McGillicuddy added.

Jim Woulfe, EI’s chairperson, said: “This is not just a competition, but a platform connecting great research, great founders and partners to bring solutions to market.

“The event also highlights the high calibre of research commercialisation activity within Ireland, and the significant impact these companies will have to help address huge global challenges.”

Last year, University of Limerick deep-tech Oscil took home the top award at EI’s Start-Up Day. The company provides real-time data analytics for powder manufacturing to address issues in the production process and the end product’s overall performance.

Yesterday, EI also launched its annual report detailing support it has offered to start-ups in the past year. The state agency said that it spent nearly €33m in 2025 to support 198 new start-ups in the country.

The investment marked a 19.2pc jump from 2024, when the agency supported 157 home-grown start-ups with €27.6m.

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Updated, 7 May 2026, 12:15pm: The article has been updated with additional information from Enterprise Ireland.