Media Release

Finance critical to early stage entrepreneurs

Pictured following InterTradeIreland All-Island     Seedcorn Business Competition Mid-West Lunchtime Briefing hosted by Limerick Institute of Technology on Tuesday 24th July (l-r) Donncha Hughes, Enterprise Acceleration Centre Manger, LIT; Paul Fitzgerald, Director, ParkMagic (winner of the regional prize in 2006); Graham Royce, LEAP programme manager, LIT; and Gráinne Lennon, Project Manager, InterTradeIreland.

“Intertrade Ireland’s Seedcorn competition with increased prize funding this year of €280,000 is hugely important for clients of the Enterprise Acceleration Centre particularly the participants on the LEAP Programme. Access to finance is a critical issue for early stage entrepreneurs. Our mentoring and business planning service will identify the options open to the new business promoter. These include: feasibility funding provided by Enterprise Boards and Enterprise Ireland; Business Angel Investors; Business Expansion Scheme, Seed Capital Relief, and of course Venture Capital. It is important that the entrepreneur maximise the value of these supports at the appropriate stages in the development of their business.”

This is according to Donncha Hughes, Enterprise Acceleration Centre Manger following InterTradeIreland All-Island Seedcorn Business Competition Mid-West Lunchtime Briefing hosted by Limerick Institute of Technology on Tuesday 24th July. The briefing was attended by over 30 early stage business promoters in the region. Mr Hughes added:

“The Enterprise Acceleration Centre’s aim is to accelerate the development of high potential companies by assisting entrepreneurs to develop their businesses. Two key issues in this regard are business planning and securing external finance. The LEAP programme is geared to assist early stage business promoters by facilitating them over 12 months to develop an ‘investor-ready’ business plan. The Seedcorn competition complements and endorses the work of the LEAP programme in many ways.’

Gráinne Lennon, Project Manager, InterTradeIreland provided a briefing on the Seedcorn competition which involves a record prize fund of €280,000 in 2007. Highlighting that 30 of the 143 applicants in 2006 were Munster based companies, Ms Lennon added that a key objective of the competition is to enhance awareness of the availability of and benefits of using private equity while stimulating the development of investor ready projects.

“Securing venture funding for viable business and investment propositions is challenging. If the business venture is early stage, the equity gap is even more pronounced as only a small number of venture capital funds invest in the ‘seed capital’ space. The Business Plan is a key tool that demonstrates that the entrepreneur/venture team have a business proposition with the potential to be a star investment.”

A panel of business leaders and investors will award the top prize of €100,000 and €50,000 to the overall ‘international’ and ‘emerging’ category winners and further cash prizes to the runners-up. Gráinne provided a quick checklist to be considered when entering your business plan to the competition:

• Make sure that the Executive Summary captures the attention of a potential investor
• Less is more, avoid a plan that it so long that a potential investor will be put off reading it
• Avoid an overly technical plan and use of jargon.  The plan should be market/sales focused
• Ensure realism prevails (e.g. valuation of the business, financial projections)

To register your interest in entering the All-Ireland Seedcorn Business Competition, log on to www.intertradeireland.com/seedcorn. Closing date for submission of business plans is September 28, 2007.