EI and Northern Ireland setup business incubation programme for 40 startups
21st of May 2007 by admin
Enterprise Ireland and its Northern counterpart, Invest NI, have launched a business incubation programme that offers budding entrepreneurs help to establish companies that can trade globally.
See RTE business section coverage
The state development agencies say the programme will provide export-oriented entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland and the six border counties with financial support, skills, expertise, and contacts.
The ‘Transform – Ideas into Businesses‘ programme starts in September, and offers 40 participants financial support of up to €38,000 towards their first year’s salary as they develop their new business.
Brendan Flood of Enterprise Ireland said: ‘Entrepreneurs will be assisted and challenged to develop strong start-up companies, with robust investor ready business plans’.
Ian Murphy, of Invest NI said: ‘This new programme offers entrepreneurs the support they need to establish knowledge-intensive businesses that have a high potential for growth’.
5 Responses to “EI and Northern Ireland setup business incubation programme for 40 startups”
brianomalley
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 am
Thanks for that Brendan. This programme is the latest of a breed of start-up programmes EI is involved with. Many of the start-ups in whose first investment rounds we participate in have cut their teeth on them. Think about it: 12 months salary support, intros, facilities and like-minded peers etc! This one in particular has a lot of promise. It is going to be very well resourced and the cross border aspect will give it an interesting dimension. If people would like to find out more in confidence, my colleague Barry Egan who is the director for NW region, would be happy to talk. He can be reached at 071 91 59700 or barryDOTeganATenterprise-ireland.com
brianomalley
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Barry Egan just popped his head in my door to ask me to thank Lal for the plug and also to point out that the following additional help is available for successful participants;
- 5 x consultancy days with a high quality business consultant to help put your business plan together. When you consider a good business consultant can charge €1k per day easily….
- funding to make an overseas market research trip….would probably get someone to the valley for a few days
Lal already mentioned the grant funding…
…50% of your last salary up to a limit of €38k..eg say you earned a salary of €76k, you could potentially get a grant of €38k to put bread on the table.
Barry also wants to point out that the programme definitely wants to hear from people with good web 2.0 ideas!
Brendan Lally
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Brian,
Good 2c u keeping on eye on this and responding so quickly with Barry’s comments.
Now if we could only get the rest of EI 2 get online!
Lal
Paul Walsh
May 25th, 2007 at 10:44 am
Brian,
Why don’t EI setup an RSS feed for all new initiatives and upcoming events. That way, we’ll all get to hear about them. It appears to be disjointed at best and we rely on sharing information with each other.
Cheers big ears
Paul
brianomalley
June 6th, 2007 at 3:46 am
Hi guys, only coming back to this now. Cheers lal, it is a good programme though and a great way to get 12 months runway to get a project together.
Paul makes a great point – will make the suggestion.