Promising Irish startups have just two weeks to net a €50k cash windfall

A MAJOR NEW fund is set to give promising Irish startups a chance to net a €50,000 injection of equity funding.

Enterprise Ireland announced today that its Competitive Start Fund will open for submissions on Wednesday 25 January and will close at 3pm, Wednesday 8 February.

The €750,000 fund will provide €50,000 in equity funding for each successful applicant. The state agency will then take a 10% “ordinary equity stake” in the startup company.

Enterprise Ireland said that the fund provides entrepreneurs and startups with “critical early stage funding to test the market for their products and services and progress their business plans for the global marketplace”.

Applicants to the fund must be a ‘manufacturing or an internationally traded services business’.

Some previous recipients of the fund include medical supplies company Theya Healthcare, salon bookings service Beutifi and grocery delivery startup Buymie.

Theya Healthcare makes bras for breast cancer survivors

Eligibility

A full list of what Enterprise Ireland considers to fall under that definition is available here, but a few examples include “games, apps, mobile, cloud computing, life sciences and cleantech”.

Here are a few other requirements that applicants have to meet to be eligible:

• Companies must not have received equity funding of more than €100,000 prior to the competition closing date.
• Must be less than three years old on the date of registration.
• Must not have annual revenues in excess of €60,000 in the current financial year to date or in any previous financial year.
• Must be capable of creating 10 jobs in Ireland and realising sales of €1m within 3 years of the competition closing date.

A full list of the eligibility requirements are available here.

Starting and scaling

Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor said that the new competitive start fund “will make a real contribution to help more early stage businesses get off the ground and ultimately assist in creating more jobs around all regions of the country”.

Enterprise Ireland high potential startup manager Orla Battersby said that a priority for Enterprise Ireland “is to help Irish entrepreneurs and companies to start up and scale”.

“The competitive start fund provides a support platform and a vital injection of funding to help launch young companies with global ambition and their business ideas to an international market.”