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Bruton launches €10m international start-up fund

Jobs Minister Richard Bruton today launched a €10 million International Start-Up Fund, aimed at encouraging overseas entrepreneurs to locate start-up businesses in Ireland:

  • The fund will be administered by Enterprise Ireland and will be open to company promoters anywhere in the world, but will be targeted particularly at the Irish diaspora, international expatriates, the “New Diaspora” (people from overseas who have previously worked or studied in Ireland), as well as serial and mobile entrepreneurs
  • Key geographical targets will include North America, UK, Europe and Australia
  • Key target sectors include Internet, Games, Cloud Computing, Medtech and Financial Services sectors
  • The fund will target investor-ready projects seeking between €200,000 and €500,000
  • Funding will be in the form of an equity stake taken by the State in the company

To support the marketing of the fund overseas Enterprise Ireland will be appointing a number of high profile successful Irish entrepreneurs to act as International Start Up Ambassadors. Dylan Collins, one of the most experienced Internet entrepreneurs in Europe, is one of the first to accept the role of fund Ambassador.

Announcing the fund, Minister Bruton said:

This Government’s ambition is not only to turn the country around and get employment growing again, but to once again create a dynamic economy that is the envy of the world and has over two million people at work.

This will not be easy, but one key strand of our new industrial strategy will be to create a genuine indigenous engine of growth. As I have said before, our ambition must not only be to attract the next Google or Microsoft to Ireland, but we must also seek to grow the next Google or Microsoft in Ireland. Indigenous companies provide proportionally more than three times more benefit to the Irish economy than multinational companies.

Today’s announcement is a direct intervention by government to create more start-up companies here. Across the world, many of the start-up companies which go on to succeed and create jobs are driven by people within a small class of mobile, innovative, serial entrepreneurs. What the Irish Government is saying very clearly today to the international technology community gathered in Dublin is – come and start your company in Ireland, we are open for business, and we will support you.

Read the full press release here.

You can listen to the full audio of the press conference below in two parts...

Part 1:

Part 2: