A new report from employers group Ibec reveals that while founder confidence remains high, significant challenges in accessing funding and competing for talent are holding them back.<\/p>\n
The annual Ibec Founders Report found that despite a largely positive outlook growth is being constrained.<\/p>\n
The report shows that 77% of founders rated the current business environment positively and 68% felt optimistic about the next six months.<\/p>\n
Top challenges facing founders were access to funding (27%) and competition on pay (37%). Administrative red tape was also cited as a key structural barrier.<\/p>\n
Ireland is now home to seven unicorns – a privately-owned company that is valued at more than $1 billion – today’s report shows.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, new startup creations increased by 9% in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n
Founders’ growth ambitions are clear, with their top business priorities being accessing new markets (22%), launching new products and services (21%) and fundraising (15%).<\/p>\n
Sharon Higgins, Ibec Executive Director, Membership & Sectors, said that Ireland has all the raw ingredients to be a global leader in high-growth, founder-led enterprise.<\/p>\n
“Founders are already making a significant contribution – employing over 234,000 people and driving exports and inward investment,” she noted.<\/p>\n
“It’s heartening to see continued capital flowing into our brightest startups, including venture capital investment in women-led startups growing by 39% to \u20ac200m, but ambition alone is not enough,” she stated.<\/p>\n
“We must continue to find ways to support our founders through targeted incentives, a streamlined R&D tax credit that rewards innovation, and a reduction in the regulatory burden,” Ms Higgins urged.<\/p>\n
“With the right support, Ireland’s founders can build world-class businesses, create high-value jobs, and position our country as a global hub for entrepreneurship and innovation,” she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report from employers group Ibec reveals that while founder confidence remains high, significant challenges in accessing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[84,4203,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-167838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-entrepreneurship","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}