Competitive Start Fund (CSF) - Enterprise Ireland
enterprise-ireland.com
enterprise-ireland.com
One thing strike me straight away. The only reason I would accept equity would be for contacts and expertise. This program does not offer it, but it is a start!
Ireland is in a bad state right now, it's recovering from an inept government and crazy policy when it came to small startups. This will go a long way to starting up jobs in the country, they need to go much further.
The country has the talent to make an impact on the world stage, we have a highly educated, motivated workforce. It is exceptionally difficult for any startup to get a loan from the banks in Ireland right now.
The company I work for, got a grant from Enterprise Ireland and I know they are desperate to get as many jobs as possible.
EI always had had funding if you want to help create jobs, from their perspective. My downfall is that I would only want to create one job: mine.
For instance, in Luxembourg, the state is going to double your investment (up to a million €) while not taking any parts in the company. But you must pass a comittee which decides on whether you get the funding or not. (http://www.eco.public.lu/salle_de_presse/com_presse_et_art_a...)
There is still much more: E.g. reimbursement of fair costs, 40% salary takeover by the state if you hire university graduates which haven't yet found a job, etc...
You will get the help only once and it will only match the investment you invest into your company as well. So if invest 0€ into your company, you will also get 0€.
Plus you can't beat the Guiness.
That being said, I'd say that if you aren't already in Ireland--the funding above would probably not be an option. Getting a visa is not a trivial matter (especially without an actual employer) and Enterprise Ireland will make you jump through alot of hoops for that money. Pretty great idea tho'--Ireland needs programs like that to get the economy back on track.
Remember Ireland is a member of the European Union, so any EU citizen can live & work in Ireland. If you parent or grandparent are Irish citizens/have an irish passport, then you can get Irish citizenship and live and work in Ireland forever.
Amazon aswell. Their AWS EU datacentre is in Ireland.
Google particularly had a lot of employees in London but only paid tax in Ireland
"The maximum support available is €50,000 for a 10% ordinary equity stake in the start-up company. "
They are asking a fair bit, what do they do, kick you out of Ireland if your not quickly successful?
If you're already eligible to work in Ireland (a requirement of the grant), I'm pretty sure the Department of Enterprise doesn't have the power to deport people ;)
No, I think that's more a guideline for selection--they aren't looking to fund lifestyle businesses. This is a government run fund and is meant to provide a boost to the economy.
Cheap, regular flights from Dublin to just about anywhere in Europe make those trips to London, Paris, Amsterdam and Germany into just day trips. I found it was a pretty good hub.
Why not just pitch to Dave McClure's 500Startups? You can get started with $10k for 1% equity, valuing your startup at $1M. More funding is possible, plus space, mentors, ...
I would think more of a bet instead of valuation when thinking of seed investment in a start-up. What I would say they do is standardize their bets, using their history and benchmarking theirs with other investors. YC's standard bet is around ~$20k for ~6% equity, that's all.
-Ireland is incredibly expensive for what you get, food/drink/eating out is on par or more expensive than San Francisco. The only thing thats cheaper is rent.
-Couple the previous point with the fact that Software Engineers in Ireland get paid roughly 1/3 of what they earn in the valley.
-Most good Software engineers leave the country so the ecosystem in Ireland is not so hot for finding top talent.
-Most big companies in Ireland do localization, sales/marketing, IT stuff. Very little real development is done there by big companies (i.e facebook/google/amazon).
-Infrastructure in Ireland is shit. Its a right pain in the ass to get decent broadband setup and the roads here are a joke.
If I wanted to do a lean startup in Europe I would incorporate in Ireland for the tax rate and setup shop somewhere sane like Berlin where rent and cost of living is cheap.
Blog Post on Startup Success Podcast:
http://startupsuccesspodcast.com/2011/01/show-96-david-smith...
Direct Link to MP3:
http://media.startupsuccesspodcast.com/StartupSuccess096.mp3
You can still work in the US but you just have to have your company HQ etc in Ireland.
As I'm from Ireland myself, but live and work in NYC, I can attest to the talented developers and modern infrastructure in Ireland. Its not for everyone, but worth a look.
He's definitely someone who could tell you about the culture and ecosystem from a US background if you're considering applying to the program.
"The first tranche will be released when the company provides confirmation of an additional investment of €5,000 in the company"
So you have to get approval not only from them, but also some other funding organization (and one that invests such a small amount). I wonder if self-funding counts.
It's been fairly common for the loans and grants I've seen in the UK to require proof of a bit of self-provided capital before you can get the funds.
I read that to mean "when you produce a bank statement with €5,000 in the account, we will pay you the first half".
If any Irish hackers want to have a chat, to let me know what you're working on, or need a business-head to compliment their hacking skills drop me a line (email in profile).
I have no association aside from being an interested observer, FWIW.
What actually happens if the startup fails to do this?
And, what is ordinary equity? As you can tell by that question, I'm a newbie when it comes to this. Any background reading recommendations would be appreciated.
"Please note applicants must be eligible to live and work in Ireland."
i can't believe i'm the first person to post this on HN. thought it might have been old news by now, but thought I'd do it anyway.
* The truly brilliant people tend to leave after high school, since there're no world class universities here (particularly for sciences).
* People seem, in my opinion, to get quite tunneled vision in terms of what they can achieve: they see Ireland as the boundary of their successes. People here tend to be unambitious.
* Labour laws in Ireland are very strict: once you hire someone, it's practically impossible to fire them.
* We are currently in a terrible economic situation, the country is bankrupt. 20 year old Irish companies have trouble getting credit, let alone startups.
* It's probably worth noting that Enterprise Ireland is generally considered quite incompetent in terms of deciding who to invest in and in general operation of their programs. Getting this grant would require, most likely, an absurd amount of hoop jumping.
* Dublin is also still a very expensive place to live.
That said, there're a lot of great things about Ireland (more specifically Dublin):
* It's a very small (and very social!) place, building a network is not hard, everyone knows everyone.
* Dublin is a great place to live.
* Very low corporation tax (12.5%)
EDIT: Formatting
I wonder why would big corporations move there if labor laws are so strict there. Maybe they get "special" treatment in exchange for creating lots of jobs?
Also, if Dublin is so expensive, does it make sense to hire workers there who probably have to make more in exchange to get low corporate tax? Hmmm...
Dublin is definitely not so expensive that it outweighs the benefit of a 12.5% corporation tax, which is more than twice less than most other EU countries.
Dublin's startup scene is at a much earlier stage, so there certainly isn't the same sort of community, talent, mentorship etc.
Raising money would also be more challenging, since there are only a hand full of VC's.
Sounds a little trivial, but it is worth saying that there is a really strong sense of pessimism here at the moment (because we're basically bankrupt). This is actually rather overwhelming and hard to escape from.
I also agree with the point regarding ambition. There isn't the same rampant enthusiasm here to actually build things and achieve something. So its harder to find like-minded co-founders... people who are willing to throw caution to the wind, work incredibly hard and just go for it.
Having said all those things, its undeniable that there is definitely something really positive happening in Dublin at the moment. This is the second incubator fund that's been put together (the first closed in jan of this year). Also take a look at the dublin web summit... http://www.dublinwebsummit.com/
Dogpatch has also announced that they are opening an incubator in Dublin, and DCU's incubator has just joined the Techstars network.
There are also tonnes of great hackers in Dublin, many of whom are world class. The problem is that most are comfortably tied up in their jobs at google or wherever. During the last 10 years here, the game plan was this... get a good job, leverage yourself up to the tonsils to buy a house and watch as it increased in value by 20% year on year. They buy another. People were becoming paper millionaires in their 20's, so there was no incentive to try something else. Things are different now and I think that the startup bug is going to catch pretty soon. All it takes is one reasonably successful exit and the media will be all over it. Then you'll see some great talent being shook loose.
It's not the valley, that's for sure, but for Europe I think its a great option.
http://venturebeat.com/2011/03/08/dublin-europes-next-startu...
Apart from the many many cultural differences, I think overall "the valley" is a better place to live & work for people at this time - don't have time to go into detail, but the great weather, shear number of startups & startup events / support and community here is hard to beat, feels like everynight there is something going on relating to startups.
Also the ability to attend various meetups and hear directly from big name CTO's and lesser know but often equally smart developers offers a great learning experience.
The cost of living here is ridiculously low compared to Ireland.
When you get stressed Tahoe is only a 3 hour drive away :-)
"Please note applicants must be eligible to live and work in Ireland."
"Please note applicants must be eligible to live and work in the U.S."
for size
On 17 December 2008, the Government announced its decision that, from 1 January 2009, it would continue to restrict access to the Irish labour market for nationals of Bulgaria and Romania. [1]
[1] http://www.deti.ie/labour/workpermits/whoneedsapermit.htm
EU Population: 500 Million
EU Population eligible to live & work in Ireland: 470 Million
Actually, if that's true of any EU country with similar rules you could claim citizenship in that country and be allowed to live and work in Ireland. We're talking about a lot of people here.
Of course, becoming a citizen of another country shouldn't be taken lightly, and it does take time.
Yep. More info: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/moving_country/irish_ci...
the scene in dublin is coming on leaps and bounds very quickly