Supporting entrepreneurs is a top priority for us and supporting entrepreneurs is repeatedly featured in our annual business plan as a key driver of economic growth.
Over the last three years, we have provided support to over 2,000 young businesses under five years old, accounting for 30% of all support provided during this period. This represents around £57 million, or 22%, of the total support provided by Invest NI, equating to a total investment of £280 million in the economy and creating around 2,000 jobs. We estimate that these young businesses account for 18% of both the total economic investment and new jobs created in Northern Ireland during this period.
Some of these offers were made to High Potential Start-Ups (HPSUs), which are young, early stage businesses with ambitious management teams. During the same period, we provided £8.28 million in support to 34 HPSUs, creating 117 jobs.
Here are some of the ways we've helped entrepreneurs over the past few years:
Local Economic Development (LED) Program
Between 2017 and 2022, with funding from Invest NI and the ERDF, 11 local authorities have delivered 41 entrepreneurship programmes, investing a total of £22 million in local micro and small businesses. As a result of these programmes, over 650 businesses have been introduced to Invest NI, and we continue to work with over a third of them. Find out more about how we support ambitious start-ups across Northern Ireland here.
From student to first sale
Over the past five years we have funded 22 businesses from student to first sale, working with universities and students’ union enterprise support services to provide promising start-ups with grants of £15,000 to help them develop and grow.
These businesses are highly innovative and have great growth potential, as evidenced by the fact that 14 of the original 22 businesses are still with us today, including the highly innovative Born Maverick and movetru.
Ambition for growth
As businesses evolve, the type of support they need changes too. To help provide support to young, innovative businesses, last year we developed the Ambition to Grow Programme. The programme is designed specifically for businesses that have not benefited from Invest NI support to date but are turning over or about to start selling.
