Enterprise Ireland Wants to Lead the Way in Quest to Fund 50% Female Founders
This week I was doubly excited to read this article from Silicon Republic: firstly because Enterprise Ireland, the third largest Seed stage investor in the world, is setting itself an ambitious target to reach 50% of the startups it funds to be female-led and secondly, well because I’m a proud Irishwoman and advocate for more women entrepreneurs to get funded :) — like a double Christmas coming in one day!
“Ireland is setting a new international benchmark and leading the field for funding women-led tech firms. Internationally, the funding level for women-led companies is typically 6pc or lower. Enterprise Ireland is bucking this trend, with 35pc of all high-potential start-ups (HPSUs) backed in 2017 being women-led. For the CEO of Enterprise Ireland, Julie Sinnamon, 35pc is still not good enough.”
READ FULL ARTICLE: Enterprise Ireland CEO, JulieSinnamon wants Female Founders to get 50% of Funding. via Silicon Republic
I’ve had the privilege of seeing all the great work Julie and her team at Enterprise Ireland (including Sarita Johnston) are doing to support female founders, moving the needle for female founders who apply getting funded from 7– to 35% in the past few years. They even sponsored our first InvestHer Meet Up in Dublin last year.
Only last week in Paris, I attended an event organised by Enterprise Ireland and Network Irlande at the Irish Embassy, where Ciara Donlon, Founder & CEO of Theya Healthcare shared her entrepreneurial journey as a social entrepreneur and laureate for Europe of the Cartier Women’s Initiative Award 2017. We need to keep seeing more female founder role models speaking up in the startup ecosystem. It’s something I take to heart and what motivates me to shine a spotlight on them in my Trailblazing Women Series.
It’s great to see Ireland continuing to lead the way. Hopefully other government entities and seed funders will follow suit. Setting a target is a good step and 50% is an ambitious target I can feel proud of, on all levels. Look forward to watching how they do it.
Watch Anne Ravanona’s TEDx talk on Investing in Women Entrepreneurs and learn more about her @anneravanona or Book Her as as Speaker at www.anneravanona.com
Learn more about Global Invest Her www.globalinvesther.com @GlobalInvestHer
