More women setting up high-potential start-ups

The number of women involved in high-potential start-ups has more than doubled in the last three years, the head of Enterprise Ireland has stated.

In 2001 just 7 per cent of high-potential start-ups were from women. In 2014 that figure had reached 18 per cent.

Enterprise Ireland chief executive Julie Sinnamon said this was a direct result of a competitive start-up fund just for women that EI had set up.

Mrs Sinnamon told a business conference as part of the Rose of Tralee festival that the ultimate goal was a 50:50 split between men and women setting up on their own. “Success for us would be that we would no longer need a women-only fund.”

Mrs Sinnamon was giving the keynote address at the Stay Local, Go Global conference in Tralee on behalf of the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, whose mother died last week.

The conference featured some 250 business entrepreneurs, along with the current Rose of Tralee, Maria Walsh, and former competition winners Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin (above), who won in 2005, and Charmaine Kenny, who won in 2009.