Meet the Founders with AIB, Dublin
Team AwakenHub were very kindly hosted by our partner AIB last Thursday for a very special ‘Meet the Founders’ Breakfast in Dublin.
The photos below show the joy and energy in the room way more than a blog can convey but needless to say it was a very fast paced few hours with so much interconnecting and people meeting eachother, sometimes for the first time after being part of AwakenHub for nearly 3 years.
The morning started off with a welcome from Jim O’Keefe, Head of Retail at AIB who set the tone when he spoke so passionately about both his team and his daughters and the need to ensure that women and girls are not left out or left behind when it comes to the choices and paths they want to take into the future.
Ellen Drum, AIB Communications & Stakeholder Engagement Manager, moderated a panel with AwakenHub co-founders Mary McKenna, Sinead Crowley and Denise McQuaid talking about AwakenHubs’ ‘why’ and AwakenAngels.
The plan has been crystal clear on our part from the start - change the landscape to create equity for women as founders and investors. AwakenHub is the ‘community’ piece - the funnel builder for women founders from concept, to MVP, launch, bootstrap, raise pre-seed, seed and beyond which is now 3,000 strong across the island of Ireland and Irish connected women founders abroad.
The second part of the puzzle was to create an environment where women who felt like their pockets, connectivity and knowledge weren’t deep enough to consider the world of angel investing. AwakenAngels is going to change that - through a democratised process of making angel investing more affordable, accessible and educational.
Women can join the AwakenAngels syndicate and invest starting from 2k and the investment is made as one entry on the founders CAP table. A comprehensive 9 modules of training will cover all you need to know about getting started or building on your existing investor knowledge base via AwakenAcademy. New investors will sit alongside seasoned investors in the women-led syndicate creating a community of shared intelligence and connectivity. AwakenAngels can invest starting from 2k stg/euro/dollars as part of the syndicate and also to complete the democratisation piece - can also choose what founders they want to invest as part of a curated dealflow brought to the synicate several times across the year.
Thanks to the support of our AwakenAngels partners British Business Bank and InterTrade Ireland, a limited number of first time women angels based on the island of Ireland will also be able to apply for sponsored access to AwakenAcademy angel training. Expressions of Interest are now open for founders looking to raise pre-seed and investors (women and men).
We also had the pleasure of sharing the stage with some of our women founders Frances O’Reilly - DogDry, Roisin Maguire - Seedling Education and Sophie Nicol - Windrush Farm. All three women shared openly with the audience the challenges they face as founders as well as celebrating the wins - big and small - as they happen.
Team AwakenHub / AwakenAngels
Photos with thanks by www.coalesce.ie via AIB.
