Starting a company may seem to be a challenge of life for a person at the beginning of an entrepreneur’s journey. Also, the nature of people is such a thing that every person thinks that their challenges are the most outstanding ones.
Though, every experienced entrepreneur would agree with the statement that launching something isn’t that tough to do. Coming up with an idea for a startup is tricky and one should have the spirit and mood to do this. But, after all, an idea can’t be milked out of any person per request.
On the contrary, what is really a challenge is to support the company operational and scale it multiple times is the real challenge. In most cases, a consistent ramp in key metrics is possible with the certain external funds raised. Luckily, there are options of fundraising and funding in Ireland for different purposes and requirements. So, there is always room for almost every promising idea or professional to get proper treatment and funding.

Initial Funding and Support

The first where every beginning entrepreneur would head is one of the organizations or programs from this category. Some of the options are partially or totally supported by the government or NGOs, though, all of them aim at sort of a “hardcore startups”. To be eligible for these options, one should be an early stage startup, with some sort of innovative solution or has to solve some sort of critical issue for the country – for instance, solve or facilitate the COVID-19 outcomes.

Local Enterprise Offices

The first and quite common option of fundraising are grant applications to the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) . There are 2 main types of grants available for local entrepreneurs from their counties – Prime Grant and Feasibility Grant.
Prime Grant is the main tool to found the new startups in the area. It is available to all micro-enterprises within the first 18 months of their operation. To be eligible for the grant, you need to fit the following criteria:

• Be located and operating in the county of LEO;
• Employ not more than 10 employees;
• Be manufacturing, or domestically traded service business with the prospects of getting traded internationally;
• Be a business which will fit the Enterprise Ireland portfolio upon growth
• Have a need in funding in order to develop and scale the business.

Generally, the requirements aren’t tough, even more, they are more than acceptable. Essentially, Local Enterprise Office is interested in projects, which would develop manufacturing in the area, or will be service companies of certain size.

Another popular type of grant is a Feasibility Study Grant, which is given to the local enterprises seeking funds for different types of research and development expenses. This grant is created to assist different businesses in their efforts of conducting industry research and studies in order to optimize their business and costs, as well as identify the best and most promising niches to occupy.
The types of research and analysis headings, which are eligible for the grant is as follows:

• Market Research;
• Salary or labor research;
• Prototyping, Innovations, or Technical development;
• Consultancy costs;
• Miscellaneous costs.

Both grants are obtainable for almost any early stage company and serve the purpose of giving sort of a small “head start” for the local enterprises.

Enterprise Ireland

Enterprise Ireland is the national organization to support the Irish companies on all stages of their development. As it was mentioned before, Enterprise Ireland is sort of a next step for a successful company in its path to success and scaling. In fact, one of the requirements of a Prime grant from the Local Enterprise Office was to be eligible for Enterprise Ireland’s portfolio.
The journey of a successfully growing startup should be shifting from LEO’s Prime grant to Enterprise Ireland’s grants, which include the following options:

• Online retails scheme fund;
• COVID-19 products scheme;
• Powering the Regions – Enterprise Centre Scheme;
• Brexit – Ready for Customs grant;
• Lean Business Continuity Voucher;
• Business Financial Planning grant;
• Sustaining Enterprise Fund;
• Sustaining Enterprise Fund – Small Enterprise.

Similarly to the case of LEO grants, these options are designed in a way to reflect the current needs and challenges of the country and priorities of development. For instance, there are separate grants for COVID-19 products and solutions because it is obviously the biggest challenge for the whole world in 2020.

Revenue.ie

Revenue.ie is an Irish tax and customs authority website. They have a few options to support the Small and medium enterprises with funding. The most wide-spread and popular one is the Relief for Investment in Corporate Trades, which is available for the trading companies.
These funds are invested by individuals in return of the equity share provided to the investor. Apart from the mentioned relief, the organization offers a number of other startup support initiatives, like decreasing the tax pressure schemes, and research and development support.

Údarás na Gaeltachta

This organization is a non-profitable party, which aims at preserving, developing, and
popularizing Irish native language. They are doing this by a wide set of activities, including,
community development, business support, regular event organization etc. Also, in terms of
funding, these guys have some really broad opportunities including:

• Feasibility study grants;
• Research and Development grants;
• Online trading scheme;
• Capital grant;
• Employment grant, and other options.

All of the opportunities are available, yet there may be some particular limitations applied to some of the applicants because of the nature of organization and their honorable mission.

LEADER program by National Rural Network

Essentially, this program is an option only for those, whose projects are targeted on
development and sustainability of rural areas. There are three main categories of projects and
products, addressing different problems of the rural areas:

• Economic development, Enterprise Development, and Job creation;
• Social Inclusion;
• Rural Environment.

The criterias of identification of the company’s main goal and suitability are strict enough, which makes it an outstanding opportunity for those, who really care about rural development.
The grants’ funding varies from €30,000 to €500,000 or various types of projects. The funding rate also varies from up to 50% for private projects to 100% for some of the community projects.

HORIZON Grants

HORIZON is a program by European Commission to support quite a wide range of
industries and projects. To be eligible for the grant, your project or company should fit one of the
areas , which are now supported by the Commission. Also, the project, in most cases, should
find three partners for this project with the necessary facilities or experience. The evaluation
process also takes five months, which makes this option sort of a tough call for the majority of
the startups.

IntertradeIreland

Another option of fundraising for Irish companies during the first few years of operations is InterTradeIreland’s support and funding. Being in charge of developing the trade and business on the island, the organization offers 3 types of funding support to Irish companies.

Acumen program is a sales and marketing support program, which aims to help businesses target new cross-border markets effectively as well as identify new potential customers. Fusion, which is the second program, helps businesses to find and onboard talents, specialists with necessary skill sets and experience who will enable the growth of the company.

Finally, Elevate is a program to provide consultancy and help building a cross-border sales
development plan and realization of the planned activities. Any of the options are actually
available for a wide range of companies as the requirements aren’t that strict.

Angel Networks

One of the many starting points for the long journey of some of the startups. For Irish startups, the majority of angel networks are located in the Western region, and they would be more than happy to review and invest in some of the promising projects.

HBAN

HBAN, referring to Halo Business Angels Network, is a network situated in Northern Ireland, and accomplishes 15 different angelg groups, with 5 regional networks and 10 syndicates. All of the groups are aimed at projects of different industries and have different application requirements.
In general, Hall Business Angels Network is responsible for more than 500 companies investments with a total of €112 million invested.

Venture Capital and Investment Funds

Support of early-stage projects is thought to be the most rewarding method of investment. Also, it is widely supported by Irish and European authorities. Though, if we’re talking about further growth of the company and scaling it to the point of becoming an enterprise, venture capital and investments become the more often and preferred option. In Ireland there are quite a few opportunities of attracting VC funds to the projects.

Western Development Commission

Has a reputation of a private entity supporting the development of the Western region of Ireland. There are two main models of funding in WDC. The first are enterprise loans with special terms and decreased interest. The second option is venture funding, purchasing the company’s equity. The WDC is quite a large fund with a portfolio of €72 million and more than 5,000 jobs created.

Investments to certain sectors

FREED

Funding Resources for Innovation in Energy Enterprise Development is a European organisation, which attracts private and public funding as well as provide support options itself for the projects, community and businesses aimed at development of Energy Resources Innovations.

Western Development Commission – Creative Industry and
Sustainability Initiatives

Western Development Commission is a private organisation mentioned in the previous section about venture capital. Though, apart from investing into prosperous projects, they are also supporting creative industry participants by giving loans with a very rare case of funding their private rounds (mainly when they qualify for equity investments for general companies). The same workflow is applicable to projects and companies aimed at sustainability solutions development.

Banks and Credit Funds

Allied Irish Bank

First option of raising some funds on your company’s development is to apply for a SME loan at Allied Irish Bank. The amount of money, which you can raise with this option is no more than €60,000. The description of this loan product from a AIB states that it is available for all companies who are in need of additional funding to stay operational and active as a company.

Bank of Ireland

Similarly to AIB, Bank of Ireland has a special product called “Startup Account” which includes special rates and requirements for the majority of services, necessary for startup-accounts. Obviously, it includes business loans, having options of funding up to €100,000. Additionally, startups can request asset finance assistance, with the options of Hire Purchase, Leasing, and Insurance Premium finance. The hard cap for this sort of funds attraction is €150,000 in the form of equipment, vehicles or other facilities.

Ulster Bank

This bank also offers a separate option o a startup account with a package of services. Though, there is no emphasized opportunity of getting business loans for startups, while applicants can choose an option of getting a corporate credit card with certain limits.

Microfinance Ireland

Is an organization, which sole purpose is to provide loan opportunities to Irish startups. The loan size is up to €25,000. This option is quite easily obtainable for almost any startup, though it is reflected in interest rates.

Another option of getting some additional funding for your company in all the above-mentioned banks, is the loan scheme of European Investment Bank. This scheme is designed in cooperation with the mentioned banks and some other Irish organizations dealing with business growth and prosperity.
Basically, almost any company which would follow the requirements has an opportunity of requesting the mentioned loan scheme. To be precise, right now European Investment Bank is looking for companies which will bring new jobs in small businesses, innovations, along with the climate and infrastructure projects. The strict exclusions for the applicants are the so-called grey and black niches, like illegal activities, pornography, casinos, weapon sales, etc.

Wrapping Up

As one may see, there is a number of options available for Irish companies at an early stage. Even more, some of the prospects could lead to a bigger scale and participation in Enterprise Ireland’s programs and grants. Obviously, your project has to be perfect and super charming to impress decision makers in any of the options mentioned. Though, every fundraising opportunity, especially a grant-type one, has very clear and precise requirements of application. This means that if your goal is to go with grant funding opportunities with your
company – you can get yourself prepared in advance before application.