Irish AI project Oghma wins €500,000 Berlin spin‑out prize

Oghma, an Irish artificial‑intelligence research project co‑founded by Trinity College Dublin (TCD) professor Stefano Sanvito, secured a €500,000 investment prize after reaching the final round of the Stage Two pan‑European spin‑out competition in Berlin.

The funding was offered by German venture‑capital fund Caesar, which focuses on deep‑tech, green‑tech, health‑tech and fintech ventures. Oghma’s AI platform converts unstructured, scattered data into a usable form for scientific research and development, targeting the chemical, pharmaceutical, chip and manufacturing sectors.

Co‑founders of the project include Dr Luke Gilligan and Dr Matteo Cobelli, alongside Sanvito, who has three decades of experience in materials modelling, electronic‑structure theory, quantum transport and machine learning for materials discovery. He also serves as long‑term director of TCD’s Centre for Research on Adaptive Nanostructures and Nanodevices (CRANN).

The technology has been validated by global companies such as BASF and APC, achieving 99.7 % accuracy on a control dataset and, according to BASF, a 330‑fold productivity gain. Oghma is nearing the end of a Commercialisation Fund award from Enterprise Ireland and is preparing to spin out as a commercial business.

Stage Two, based in Berlin, attracted more than 50 research‑based spin‑outs from European universities, with Oghma emerging as the winner.

Source: Silicon Republic. Photo: Czapp Árpád / Pexels.