New 90 million Seed Investment Fund for Ireland. Is it to be celebrated?

We were thrilled at AwakenHub HQ to see the announcement yesterday of the new Seed Fund in Ireland. We truly appreciate all the effort from our friends at Scale Ireland and all those that put significant effort into making this happen. Congratulations, we have been shouting for the funding landscape to change since we launched our all Island of Ireland community for women founders in July 2020.

But here at AwakenHub we’re also a little sceptical.  Will it really change things for women founders in Ireland?

We launched AwakenHub as the pandemic hit to meet a need across the Island of Ireland based on the number of individual approaches we were getting from women North and South. That need was simple, more support for women founders or to be more exact – equity for women founders.

A lot has been said over the years about the lack of women founders in Ireland, that they don’t exist or the quality isn’t there.  We chose to ignore those statements as collectively the founders of AwakenHub knew what a rich and exciting funnel of women were literally chomping at the bit to get cracking on their founder journey or looking for suitable opportunities to scale. Many had fallen through the existing supports, had to push back against the homophily and general bias as well as deal with the daily barriers that exist which are well documented from lack of finance, confidence and no significant network to leverage. Our data shows 66% of women found accessing finance a barrier to growth or even starting a business. So we decided to do something about it.

Over 1500 women have joined the community in 20 months to learn about the world of investment and funding streams, building profile and leveraged connectivity. We also manage a private online group for women founders to share advice and support from other founders alongside a carefully curated group of successful women entrepreneurs, investors and company builders, called Big Sisters.

Our #Shegenerate Programme proved women founders not only existed in Ireland but they had a desire to change their communities, to change society and scale globally. AwakenHub was there to catch this ambition and grow a community of women supporting women, peer learning, information sharing, mentoring and ultimately funding.

And now as the AwakenHub community evolves and thrives we our turning our attention to the funding landscape with our own investment strategy with AwakenAngels. Our ambition is to democratise the landscape, fund the ambitions of our community and let no women founder on the island slip through the cracks.

We don’t want to dismiss out of hand this new Seed Fund and it’s ambitions, as we like all parties want brand “Ireland” to succeed and be recognised globally as a place to start and grow your startup. But we need to see the investment thesis, the investment committee, the gender balance in the decision-making process, and ultimately the allocation of the fund to women founders to truly jump on board to celebrate. We also want to see a significant increase in the number of women investing in women founded businesses and we have a plan to achieve that and want to be part of the solution.

Any queries please email hello@awakenhub.com or visit our website www.awakenhub.com

Reminder of AwakenHub’s mission and vision:

AwakenHub’s mission is to level up opportunity, access and connectivity for women founders throughout the Island of Ireland by removing barriers to investment, scale and success.

As a registered Social Enterprise our vision is a society where every founder’s journey is equitable irrespective of gender and where 50% of investment goes to women-led businesses.

Team AwakenHub (thanks to Denise McQuaid for putting this article together)

Co-founders, Mary McKenna, Sinead Crowley, Mary Carty, Clare McGee

AwakenHub Advisor, Denise McQuaid