Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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189. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the status of the €500,000 competitive start fund in encouraging entrepreneurs and members of the diaspora to set up here; the response to date by start-up enterprises; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41573/15]

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Targeting start-ups and early stage companies that have the capability to succeed in global markets, the objective of this call was to attract international entrepreneurs and members of the Irish diaspora to start, scale and succeed from Ireland, ultimately creating jobs in Ireland. A call for applications to the Competitive Start Fund from International Entrepreneurs was launched on 26^thAugust 2015. 87 applications were received by the closing date of 9^thSeptember 2015. The applications came from both Irish nationals living abroad and non-nationals from a wide variety of countries including Albania, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Australia, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, India, Italy, Macedonia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and Ukraine.

Following the call the twenty highest scoring projects were invited to pitch to a panel of external industry experts and EI representatives.

Ten projects were selected and each has been offered €50k investment in return for a 10% equity stake. Enterprise Ireland understands that all of the successful applicants intend to take up the offer of funding and locate here.