Shocking to hear about this from Hacker News. I'm an Irish citizen living in Oz, with a startup (www.dealpinch.com), and this is the first I've heard about it.
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.
I'm a CS student from Ireland, and although I would agree fully with the fact that we had an inept government, the number 1 priority for the new government is economic regrowth.
The company I work for, got a grant from Enterprise Ireland and I know they are desperate to get as many jobs as possible.
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...
May someone well-versed in the dark art which is French elaborate more on this program? Is it open only to EU members? Would a startup without millions of capital might really be eligible?
Your company must be based in Luxembourg, so you must have an authorization to create a company in Luxembourg which is sometimes hard to get. But they are trying to improve things there.
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€.
but what about residency? From what I gathered at your linked website (tnx btw, seems like a great resource) their work permit (aka working for an employer) rules are pretty lax... Is it the same for working on your own?
Dublin is a great place to live and good place for tech companies. I recently had to hire a developer and got plenty of good resumes and was really happy with the eventual hire. Google, PayPal, Facebook are here and loads of online gaming/gambling companies too.
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.
I think Microsoft's advertising arm is there as well. They were looking for multilingual developers and offered to relocate even from Canada. I guess Ireland's corp taxes are a haven.
Microsoft has a ton of stuff here, originally it was mostly localization work, now they do a bit of everything and have a few big datacentres as well. They do enough that "Microsoft" all on its own is a few percent of the GDP.
You have to pay the money back--with interest of course. ;)
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.
I would imagine that they expect your business plan and projections to be able to satisfy these criteria.
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 ;)
Pretty sure from what I read the American startup visa was tied to your business continuing to run. Thought this may be a similar type of thing, guess this into tied to visa requirements though.
You might get a better deal in other countries but 12.5% corporate tax is hard to beat. Also the fact that just about every silicon valley heavyweight has significant operations (dev, marketing & support) in Ireland is an indicator something is being done right over there.
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.
For 50k they take 10% equity, valuing your startup at a tiny 500k, plus you have to leave the country. You give up a lot.
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 doubt that YC measures their investment based on valuation. Imagine the companies they invested that had just the idea formed. How do you valuate that? Even in a stable business, valuation is still a bunch of guesses, how much future cash flow the company will generate, what will the investor opportunity cost be in X years, etc...
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.
As an Irish software engineer/wantrapreneur working in San Francisco here is my take on some of the comments around this article.
-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.
I heard about it through this really good podcast, where a rep from the David Smith, Senor Vice President of Enterprise Ireland (and I believe is based in Silicon Alley) explains the stake they take and why. Very informative:
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.
My pal, Robert Shedd, took his company overseas to Ireland after participating in Philadelphia's DreamIt Ventures. He's written a tiny bit about the experience thus far: http://blog.shedd.us/greetings-from-ireland%e2%80%a6/
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.
Strange to find this on Hacker News, considering I was only discussing the EI programs with my entrepreneurship lecturer last week!
The March 11th deadline may be a bit too close at this stage, but I'm always willing to plot and scheme with Irish hackers!
I will shortly complete my business management degree, and as part of this I am consulting with a local online marketing/SEO firm. I've dabbled with learning programming to do my own startup, or maybe even starting my own marketing shop, but for the time being I have been lurking here for ages, absorbing all the business advice I can get my hands on.
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).
To my knowledge, this is actually the second such fund being made available since late last year. I guess the first one was oversubscribed, which (I hope at least) augurs well. If you're in Ireland and you didn't hear about the first round or this round, they were certainly advertised in the Sunday Business Post newspaper (and I assume others), as well as online. Announcements appear to generally be posted here http://bestconnected.enterprise-ireland.com/
I have no association aside from being an interested observer, FWIW.
> Must be capable of creating 10 jobs in Ireland and realising sales of €1m within 3 to 4 years of starting up.
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.
I guess a lot of Europe's investors are sweating bricks just thinking of the length of time it will take for Ireland to pay back the money. 50k for equity now, in exchange for having up-to 10 additional tax payers is a good deal.
There actually is a scene slowly building in dublin. Some encouraging stuff going on. Can read about the dublin web summit here... http://www.dublinwebsummit.com/
I moved from Dublin to San Jose almost two years ago.
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 :-)
Care to share why you're looking for a US visa? Your comment would certainly add value to the conversation (ie Why do you think the US is better for entrepreneurs than Ireland?)
I live in Ireland and am an Irish citizen (US citizen too, hoping to move to the US). There are several reasons I would think the US is better for entrepreneurs and startups than Ireland.
* 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.
Very interesting thoughts. Thanks for sharing! Upvoted :-)
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...
It's not as big a problem for the big companies like Google and IBM since they can afford to pay people off, they can also afford to have a more extensive hiring process in the first place.
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.
Well I think there are way more opportunities for me in the US compared to Ireland, so that's the main reason that I would leave. But whether its better for entrepreneurs or not is a different question really, but I'll try to answer it...
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.
Or, if your parents or grandparents are Irish diaspora, like mine, you can claim Irish citizenship fairly easily. They already consider you a citizen, technically, so there's no immigration proceedings; you just need to "register a foreign birth" and provide documentation.
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.
if your parents or grandparents are Irish diaspora, like mine, you can claim Irish citizenship fairly easily. They already consider you a citizen, technically, so there's no immigration proceedings; you just need to "register a foreign birth" and provide documentation.
Not anyone from EU. Bulgaria and Romania are excluded:
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]
Ah good point, didn't know about that. I know that when Poland et al. joined in 2004, there were not restrictions. I thought it was similar for the 2007 new assencession states.
Yes this is double standard that is eu.
I am Bulgarian and have business that makes web based solutions from 2004.I can assure you that we have many qualified programmers. Vmware has a big local offiice, from years sap has one to, we have Bulgarian sucsess in software business to - Telerik and Vray. The point is that bureaucrats are ignorant and don't make anything accept pr using taxpayer money. Wish you luck with 50k agenda.
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.