Dogpatch Labs is Ireland's leading startup hub and coworking space, located in Dublin's CHQ Building in the heart of the Docklands innovation district. The hub provides workspace, community, and acceleration programmes for technology startups and scale-ups, many of which develop solutions relevant to smart city challenges including urban mobility, sustainability, digital health, fintech, and civic technology.
Founded with support from Enterprise Ireland, the state agency for supporting Irish business, Dogpatch Labs has grown to become the central meeting point for Dublin's technology startup community. The hub hosts over 100 companies at any given time, ranging from pre-seed startups to rapidly growing scale-ups, creating a dense and dynamic innovation environment. Regular events including pitch nights, mentoring sessions, hackathons, and industry meetups generate constant interaction between entrepreneurs, investors, corporate partners, and public sector innovation teams.
Dogpatch Labs operates the NDRC (National Digital Research Centre) accelerator, one of Ireland's most established startup programmes, which has supported hundreds of companies since its founding. Several NDRC alumni have developed smart city-relevant technologies that have been deployed in Dublin and other Irish cities, including platforms for sustainable transport, energy management, and community engagement.
The hub's location in the Docklands places it at the centre of Dublin's smart city testbed area, enabling resident startups to participate in pilot projects and access the IoT infrastructure and municipal partnerships coordinated through Smart Docklands. Dogpatch Labs' role as a connector between the startup ecosystem and the broader urban innovation landscape makes it a vital institution in Dublin's smart city development, ensuring a continuous pipeline of entrepreneurial talent and innovative solutions for the city.