As well as gaining experience of pitching to investors, Prep4Seed participants are given masterclasses and one-to-one mentoring sessions by experienced professionals.

A cohort of 13 Irish-based early-stage companies are in the running for an investment boost worth €15m following their recent completion of a 12-week investment programme.

The programme, called Prep4Seed, is facilitated by Furthr, Enterprise Ireland and the Irish Business Innovation Centres (BICs). It is designed to prepare start-ups for seed investment and pitching to investors.

The 13 companies got the opportunity to pitch their business ideas to an audience of angel investors and VCs at Enterprise Ireland’s headquarters today (16 May). The pitching event was the final step in the intensive programme.

The winners stand to receive a large sum of investment money to develop their start-up. The 13 companies who took part in the Prep4Seed programme were Octiga, Elevre Medical, Size Wise, Genicity, Dogdry, Craoi, Trigr, Great Island, Seriously Sound Food, My Gug, Babogue, Fair Select and Binarii Labs.

These start-ups operate across a variety of sectors such as green tech, agritech, medtech, AI and pharma.

Some of the start-ups featured in SiliconRepublic.com’s Start-up-of-the-Week series. Cork’s MyGug featured for its system that turns food waste into renewable energy, while Galway-based Trigr founder Gavin Duffy only set up his resource management platform last year.

As well as gaining experience of pitching to investors, Prep4Seed participants are given masterclasses and one-to-one mentoring sessions. They can avail of four masterclasses run by the Irish BICS and six one-to-one meetings with experienced BIC consultants.

The founders are also given pitch preparation training and trial sessions so they can get used to explaining their business to investors on the pitch day.

Leo McAdams, divisional manager of Enterprise Ireland said that more than one third (38pc) of participants are women.

“I am pleased to say that over a third of participants today are female founders which further supports Enterprise Ireland’s strategy to increase the participation of women in entrepreneurship and business leadership. Furthermore, the significant regional spread across a diverse range of sectors from film production to green energy is very welcome and we look forward to supporting these high-growth start-ups on their investment journey” he said.

Reporting: Silicon Republic