Ambition to Grow: Supporting Women Programme (Ireland)

The programme will provide grant support to eligible businesses on a competitive basis to help them create new employment within the business. It will also assist them with the costs of targeting markets outside Northern Ireland, technical development activities, and upskilling existing and new employees.

Funding Information

• Participants in the Ambition to Grow: Supporting Women programme can receive up to £30,000 in financial support.
• This support is broken down as follows:
  • £10,000 towards new employment within the business
  • £10,000 towards business development in relation to market, product, or skills development
  • £10,000 on the completion of an Export Health Check, Export Marketing Plan, Innovate NI Self-Assessment, and participation in a series of Leadership Development workshops

Eligibility Criteria

• Businesses must meet all the following criteria:
  • The business must currently be based in Northern Ireland, with Directors based in Northern Ireland.
  • The business must be an SME (fewer than 250 employees and with Turnover less than or equal to €50m or Balance Sheet total less than or equal to €42m.)
  • The business must provide a value-added commercial product and/or service.
  • The business must currently have either annual turnover less than £1m or have annual sales to customers outside NI less than £300k.
  • The business must not have received an offer or payment of grant support from Invest NI within the last five years (this does not include COVID-19 emergency funds, Economic Recovery Innovation Grant (ERIG), Innovation Vouchers or Access to Finance funding) or must meet all other criteria and have the agreement of its Invest NI Client Executive to access an application form.
  • The business must intend to create at least two new employment positions before January 2027.
  • The business must intend to grow sales from customers outside NI.
  • The business must be able to demonstrate that it is a viable business and will remain so for the duration of the period of Invest NI support, with evidence that the business has sufficient resources to meet any funding gaps.
  • The proposed business activity must be a strategic fit with the Invest NI Business Strategy 2024-2027 (Draft).
  • The Business must accept the completion of Invest NI Customer Due Diligence checks on the business, including a credit check.

Ineligibility Criteria

• The following are not eligible to apply:
  • Businesses already in receipt of or intending to gain other government support for the proposed new employment and/or growth activities.
  • Businesses that have an outstanding liability to Invest NI brought about through grant clawback proceedings. If a satisfactory repayment plan is in place, the business may apply for consideration.
  • Businesses, or where any member of Senior Management within the business, are subject to a current bankruptcy order, Individual Voluntary Arrangement, Company Voluntary Arrangement,
  • County Court Judgement, or Company Director Disqualification.
  • Businesses that have any of the following as its core business activity: agricultural production; fisheries and aquaculture sectors (production and processing); steel; coal; shipbuilding; synthetic fibres; transport and its infrastructure; tourism accommodation; energy (generation, distribution, and its infrastructure); wholesale; retail (including on-line); distribution.
  • Applications which include or relate to activities that Invest Northern Ireland considers as ineligible or as involving an unacceptable reputational risk, such as gambling, tobacco products and drugbased products which are not authorised as medicines.

Eligible Activities

• The aim of this programme is to incentivise Northern Ireland based women-led SMEs to grow into markets outside Northern Ireland (“external markets”) and to increase their employment levels here through the addition of several well-paid jobs.
• For an application to be considered eligible it must outline the creation of two new full-time equivalent employment positions before January 2027.
• Full-Time Equivalent positions can be a combination of Full-Time roles (contracted for 30+ hours per week and equivalent to one FTE) or Part-Time roles (contracted for 15-30 hours per week andequivalent to 0.5 FTE).
• Support may be provided towards other activities that positively impact the growth of the business into new markets, the efficiency and competitiveness of the business, the strategic direction of the business, the skills base of the business or activities that result in the development of new products and services

Ineligible Costs

• The following costs are not eligible:
  • Capital purchases e.g., machinery, IT equipment.
  • Items defined as being a cost of sale e.g., raw materials.
  • Items already part of a business’s outgoings or overheads e.g., rent, standard accountancy services.
  • Expenditure related to growing sales of the business in NI.
  • Recruitment costs.
  • Online marketing costs where expenditure is incurred directly with the online platform e.g., Facebook, Google, and LinkedIn. Costs incurred via a third party such as a digital agency are eligible for inclusion.
  • Costs incurred prior to the issue of an offer of support. Employees recruited prior to the issue of an offer of support will not be eligible for grant payment.

For more information, visit Invest Northern Ireland.