Findings from the first ever survey of over 300 startups, incubators and accelerators in Ireland, in partnership with startupireland.ie.

1. Startup Ireland Survey
An Amárach Research Briefing
to the Vision2020 Forum
October 2014

2. 284 startups
21 accelerators/incubators

3. What’s the current state of play?
What’s working/not working?
Which way(s) forward?

4. What’s the current state of play?

5. 30%
34%
36%
Ideation/
pre-startup
Started less than
1 year ago
Started less than
3 years ago
Lifestage?

6. 40%
18%
18%
24%
At home
Co-working/
incubation
space
On incubator/
accelerator
programme
In rented
offices
Base: working full time on startup n=253
Location

7. Male: 80%
Female: 20%
Under 35: 43%
Over 35: 57%
Irish: 84%
Other: 16%
Startup-ers

8. My first startup
Involved in startup before
46%
54%
Serial Entrepreneurs?

9. 19%
4%
5%
5%
26%
45%
46%
Other
Life Sci/ Bio
Hardware
Cleantech/ Energy
Mobile/ App
Business/ Enterprise
Consumer/ Internet
Sectoral Focus

10. What’s working/not working?

11. 39%
46%
37%
36%
24%
29%
25%
30%
15%
21%
16%
21%
9%
6%
Early
stage
funding
Scaling
supports
Staffing
talent
Early
sales
State
support
Working
space
Business
skills
Fairly difficult
Extremely difficult
Growth Barriers

12. Trends Report
15%
24%
67%
Patents
Trade Marks
None
Any IP?

13. Which way(s) forward?

14. 36%
54%
78%
41%
20%
13%
16%
14%
4%
Irish startup sector
well served by
government policy
Startup sector well
represented like other
business sectors
Irish startup sector is
operating at full
potential
No
Sort of
Yes
Gaps

15. Incubator Survey
• 62% are incubators; 57% are accelerators
• all offer space; mentoring; training: third offer equity
• most accommodate 15-30 startups at any time
• typical acceptance rate = 5% to 15% (up to 90%)
• could support 10-20 more startups each programme if had the space