AwakenHub & Taylor Wessing announce partnership to support early-stage women founders across Ireland
AwakenHub and Taylor Wessing today announced their formal partnership.
This development brings together a global law firm renowned for supporting the success and scale-up of early-stage businesses, and a multi-sectoral community of women founders.
Taylor Wessing has grown strategically since entering the Irish market in 2019, and has been keen to partner with a dynamic and impact driven founder community focussed on increasing the funnel of women founders in the Irish ecosystem. A serendipitous meeting quickly turned into a meeting of minds with the realisation that paths were aligned in terms of commitment to and supporting women founders in Ireland.
AwakenHub’s community has grown rapidly in just over 2.5 years to 2,600 Irish and Irish connected women founders at various stages on their founder journey, from super early-stage, growing businesses, to those seeking pre-seed and follow-on investment.
As a registered social enterprise, AwakenHub directs all profits towards meeting its social impact mission, to level up opportunity, access and connectivity for women founders throughout the island of Ireland by removing barriers to investment, scale and success.
Taylor Wessing is now confirmed as lead sponsor of AwakenHub’s SheGenerate Programme which is currently in its second cohort supporting 31 women over an eight-month period embarking on their founder journey. The firm will also work alongside the AwakenHub Founding Team to support women from all sectors across the AwakenHub community seeking to build scalable and/or investable businesses.
The announcement ties in with AwakenHub’s first international trade mission to New York where they will be hosting an exclusive women founders showcase and pitch event on St. Brigid’s Day to a room of prospective investors and family offices.
Taylor Wessing is one of the most connected law firms that works with clients from start-up to unicorn. It's one of the few firms that can support companies throughout their lifecycle, from having advised many of the early pioneers of Silicon Valley and the leading tech hubs throughout the world.
Co-founder of AwakenHub Sinead Crowley said “AwakenHub is a mission driven organisation and sometimes the stars align bringing two companies together who share a commitment and desire to achieve real impact. This is how we feel about our partnership with Taylor Wessing. We are so looking forward to benefiting from their industry knowledge and experience and sharing that with the women founders in our community.”
Head of Taylor Wessing's Dublin office, Adam Griffiths continued: “AwakenHub's mission to level up opportunity, access and connectivity for women founders throughout the island of Ireland by removing barriers to investment, scale and success aligns with our core areas of expertise and values. We are delighted to partner with the AwakenHub team. Like Taylor Wessing, they are dynamic, driven and ambitious for founders."
The two organisations will be sharing more information on partnered activity over the coming months.
