Great US trade visit for all-island network of female entrepreneurs

Participants in the all-island AwakenHub trade mission to New York and Boston reinforces the unique US-Irish business relationship

Sat, 15 Feb, 2025 - 08:35

Rita de Brún

The 25-strong Irish delegation attending a recent week-long St Brigid’s Day trade mission to the United States proved to be a huge success.

It was the third such mission run by AwakenHub, Ireland’s only all-island community for women founders, and AwakenAngels, the first women-led all-island investment community.

The mission included six women-led companies from Northern Ireland and eleven from the Republic. Among the participants were some of the most innovative Irish women-led companies in the health and life sciences, B2B, SaaS, digital technology and sustainability sectors.

The aim of the mission was to bolster investment in those 17 women-founder businesses, with financial asks ranging from $1m to $3m. In previous years, trade mission participants received six-figure investments in as little as seven weeks following meetings organised as part of the trip. Because it’s early days yet, it remains to be seen what this year’s participants will glean by way of investment, but the organisers are positive as to wins.

Across the week in the US, delegates participated in a range of meetings and events in Boston and NYC including a reception at the residence of the British consul general for New England, David Clay, MBE, which was attended by Joseph Kennedy III, former US special economic envoy to Northern Ireland, and several other investors, VCs and potential channel partners. The founders were also guests of Síghle FitzGerald, consul general of Ireland to Boston, at a private reception and lunch in the Irish Consulate.

Irish Consul General to New England, Síghle Fitzgerald, hosted a lunch reception and meeting with the AwakenHub and AwakenAngels US trade mission founders at the Irish Consulate General in Boston. Pictured are the women founders and Consul General.

Speaking with the Irish Examiner about the mission, Clare McGee, co-founder and CEO of AwakenAngels and AwakenHub, says: “It was amazing. We had an après-pitch party in the US, and the women founders let their hair down there, knowing they could be vulnerable in the midst of their own community.

“At that event, they were not afraid to say that maybe they didn’t perform too well during a pitch, and the support they showed for one another was fantastic, as was their connection. For women, it’s not just about themselves. Sometimes the mother instinct comes in.”

The Derry Girl (as McGee sometimes likes to be called), saw this on the mission, when a life science investor approached one of the women founders whose business was in fashion and beauty.

“The founder said that while she wasn’t in life and science, she would introduce him to another founder on the delegation who was. She talked that woman up, promoted her, and recommended the investor speak with her. The peer support amongst the founders is so great. I wish we could bottle it. I’m so proud of them all, from how they connect to how they show up for and support one another.

“On this mission the delegates developed very many friendships. This is why our community is so strong. They support each other, not just on this mission but on an ongoing basis and their friendships are building and building over time and that is the secret sauce of this community: That they are there for one another — not just when we are on a trade mission together, but all the time. They nurture, they develop and they build those relationships and work on them on an ongoing basis.”

A core aim of the trade mission was to secure investment and strategic partners for the women founders who attended. The importance of this goal can not be overstated.

It is not unusual for women founders to encounter difficulty in securing investment and even when they do, they regularly only receive the dregs of what’s available. This point was cemented by the EIF Research and Market Analysis figures which showed that in 2020, companies founded solely by women, garnered just 2.4% of the total VC invested in European start-ups.

Asked why it is that women founders traditionally have so much difficulty in securing investment, McGee replies: “It’s because the ecosystem and the landscape has been predominantly male. Confidence for women also plays a part. So too does unconscious bias.”

AngelHub was set up because women would tell McGee and her colleagues about the difficulties they so often experienced when seeking investment. “Women tend to bring forward different businesses than men,” she says. “Often, they start businesses in response to issues that impact their lives.

“When women seek investment from a room filled with men, for a business that might be related to menopause or endometriosis, the men might say they don’t understand those things. That kind of response can knock the women’s confidence, and the knock on effect can be that the women then think their business idea wasn’t good enough and maybe that they were not good enough either. Because we cannot be what we cannot see, we women need peer support around us to move us forward.”

Clare McGee, co-founder and CEO, AwakenHub and AwakenAngels, with Melanie Hopkins OBE, Acting Consul General at the British Consulate General in New York, at a reception for the AwakenHub & Awaken Angels women founders and investors in the residence of the British Consul General in New York.

AwakenHub was set up in 2020, during Covid, because McGee and other entrepreneurs working in the business development community were being told by women that their businesses were folding overnight, that they were losing customers, and they didn’t know where to go.

“In response, we organised an event over Zoom that year and 160 women attended and it spiralled from there,” says McGee. “There was a gap in the support available. We filled that because we are not a programme-based organisation. We are a support community. We are there on an ongoing basis providing support to women founders, that’s tailored to what they need when they need it.

At the time when AwakenHub was founded, McGee had — and still has — a consultancy business, InnovateNI, which provides business development support on behalf of local authorities. AwakenAngels was set up because the women entrepreneurs she worked with across the island of Ireland were telling her about the issues they had in terms of trying to raise investment.

“We have been ‘all island’ from day one, because there is no border in business,” she says. “That said, it has been difficult for us to navigate that, even when trying to get support, as because we are ‘all island,’ it's double the work as we have to talk to two governments.

“No matter if you are based in Limerick or in Derry, you still have the same issues raising investment. So, we set up AwakenAngels in 2023 to make it easier to get investment into women founded startups.”

Breda O’Regan, CEO of Lia Eyecare was on the trade mission.

Speaking of her co-founder in business, fellow Corkwoman, Sinéad Buckley, she says: “The idea formulated with her and I came in to commercialise the business.”

Breda O’Regan, CEO of Lia Eyecare, during her pitch to investors in the residence of the British Consul General as part of the St Brigid's Day trade mission to the USA, led by by AwakenHub, Ireland’s only all-island community for women founders, and AwakenAngels, the first women-led all-island investment community.

To date, O’Regan hasn’t encountered any difficulty with securing investment. “We are out of a successful pre-seed round, and I’ve had a positive experience, probably because we have a good idea and we were able to present that idea. We will have our final product along with our published clinical data by the end of this year. We are set to launch next year.

As for what she gained from participating in the mission she says: “The mission highlighted the ability and potential in companies that just happen to be led by women. We were provided with the opportunity to connect with investors and with strategic partners as we scale our company into the US and globally.”

O’Regan came on the trade mission with a ‘focussed idea’ of who she wanted to speak with.

“While in the US, along with making new connections, I arranged meetings in New York and Boston with my previous connections,” she says. “As a startup you really have to be impactful around what money you spend. On this mission, through the many curated events, I met a lot of people in the space of a week.”

While the founders participating in the trade mission were impressed by who they met in the US, they made a positive impact themselves. Acting British consul general to New York, Melanie Hopkins OBE, praised the women founders, describing them as "a real inspiration" and their businesses as “examples of innovation and excellence which she hoped would “reach a wide audience of potential investors” in the US.

Irish counsel general for New York, Helena Nolan said: “The Consulate General of Ireland in New York has been very pleased to welcome AwakenHub, and subsequently AwakenAngels, here to NYC, since February 2023, in collaboration with InvestNI and Enterprise Ireland.

"We are delighted to see the organisations grow on the island of Ireland and expand their reach in the US, including in New York, Connecticut and in Boston where they have been hosted by Irish Consul General Sighle Fitzgerald. The Awaken team brings a positive energy and a sense of empowerment, innovation and action which we warmly welcome.”

AwakenHub founders attending St Brigid’s Day trade mission to the US

Below are the AwakenHub members who attended the St Brigid’s Day trade mission to Boston and New York from February 3rd to 7th. The founders taking part in the St Brigid’s trade mission included:

Co Dublin