Investor-Market Fit: How Irish Founders Should Pick a US VC with Kieran Corbett

Kieran Corbett has seen the Irish startup journey from every side of the table. He started out trading futures in Dublin, began writing angel checks into early-stage Irish companies in 2015, and has kept backing them since moving to New York in 2016 — where he now invests at Studio VC, a seed-stage fund whose portfolio includes Wayflyer. That vantage point — Irish angel, US-based VC, and brother of a Wayflyer co-founder — makes him unusually well placed to explain what actually happens on the investor's side of a pitch.

In this conversation, we get into:

• What US VCs are actually underwriting for — and why “this could be worth millions” is the wrong answer in an American pitch meeting

• The venture math from the inside: a 24-company fund, the power law, and where your business fits in a fund's returns

• How much to raise at seed ($2.5–5M) and the roadmap Kieran expects to see behind that number

• What Wayflyer showed investors early on that most founders don't

• Why AI has made a working product table stakes — and made defensibility a much harder question

If you're an Irish founder with a US raise anywhere in your plans, this episode is thirty minutes of seeing your pitch from the other side of the table.

About Kieran Corbett

Kieran Corbett is an investor at Studio VC in New York. Originally from Cork, he began his career as a derivatives trader at Positive Equity in Dublin, where he started channelling his trading capital into angel investments in early-stage Irish companies from 2015. He moved to the US in 2016 and has continued writing angel checks into Irish startups for the past decade alongside his work in venture. He is also active in supporting Irish founders expanding to the US, including recent panel work with Enterprise Ireland in New York.

About Studio VC

Studio VC is a New York-based venture capital firm investing at the seed stage, with a focus on enterprise AI, fintech, and SaaS-enabled marketplaces across the US and Europe.

Want to get in contact with the Digital Irish team? Email us at podcast@digitalirish.com