Building the Irish Diaspora Venture Engine with Marius Smyth, Digital Irish Venture Fund

Episode notes

In this episode, we sit down with Marius Smyth of the Digital Irish Venture Fund (DIVF) for a follow-up to our earlier conversations with Marty Loughlin. Where Marty walked us through how DIVF picks founders and the realities of pitching the fund, Marius zooms out to the layer underneath: how DIVF is building the Irish diaspora into a working venture ecosystem rather than relying on it as a goodwill network. He is leading the build-out of a physical “Green Room” for Irish founders in New York, architecting the fund’s co-investment strategy, and thinking hard about where a fund of DIVF’s size best fits in an industry increasingly polarised between mega-funds and solo angels. In this conversation, we get into: Why the Irish network is a sourcing engine, not just a hospitality network — and what DIVF is building to keep it commercial rather than a mutual appreciation society. How DIVF co-invests alongside other funds without becoming dependent on whoever is leading the round. Why the right place for an Irish venture fund right now is not at either end of the cheque-size spectrum, and where DIVF deliberately sits.