At the recent IT@Cork Web 2 conference, reference was made by Fergus Burns to the difficulties startups have raising funds in Ireland. He asked the question “how many VCs are in the audience?” - there were none. As Fergus said, that tells its own story.
Things may be starting to change however. In his post on Irish Entrepreneurism Shel Israel noted that
The venture issue is another story and it is the one where I see change happening sooner and faster.
Now I come across an organisation which seems like a perfect fit for this need - Business Angels Partnership. The partnership works with startups to put together a business plan to present to its panel of business angels. The partnership is a not-for-profit so they don’t take any of the funding from the startup.
The funding provided is seed capital (100k-300k) early stage investment. No customer is required of the startup (although I assume it wouldn’t hurt the proposal!).
It sounds like an ideal proposition. For the angel investor, the partnership presents them with a qualified set of business proposals to look over and for the startup, they receive help putting the proposal together and get introduced to angel investors.
Win, win! Anyone know of anyone who has gone through this and did they win the lotto get funded?
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