Enterprise Ireland funding

Are you already eligible for €5,000–€150,000 in Enterprise Ireland funding?

We can tell you in about two minutes. Three quick questions, one straight answer on Enterprise Ireland funding, no email required.

1. What best describes your business?

This gives you a starting point, not a guarantee. Enterprise Ireland makes the actual eligibility call. Enterprise Ireland also runs its own official matching tool; ours is quicker and tells you specifically how VEKT AI fits in.

Before you apply

What makes a company eligible for Enterprise Ireland funding.

It comes down to two questions Enterprise Ireland asks: is the business trading, or aiming to trade, outside Ireland in a sector they support, and is there real growth ambition behind it. Here's what their own eligibility pages say, not a guess.

Already trading

Established companies

Irish-owned
Manufacturing, or an internationally traded service, such as software, engineering, life sciences, digital media, or cleantech, including professional and consultancy work, provided the work itself crosses a border
Growth ambition: building an international customer base, not just steady domestic trade

Enterprise Ireland's own eligibility criteria

Small or early-stage

High Potential Start-Ups

Registered less than 5 years
Led by a team based, and headquartered, in Ireland
An innovative product or service with protectable IP, aimed at international markets from the start
A credible path to 10 jobs and €1 million in annual sales within 3 years

Full High Potential Start-Up criteria

Not even registered yet? New Frontiers is Enterprise Ireland's own entry point for founders before either of the above applies. It excludes purely domestic-service businesses like retail and hospitality, but company registration isn't required to start.

The routes that fit AI work

Four Enterprise Ireland funding supports, four different jobs.

Enterprise Ireland runs more programmes than this, but these four (spanning €5,000 to €150,000) are the ones that apply to AI adoption, from a first scoping conversation through to training your whole team. Figures below are what Enterprise Ireland currently publishes; terms move, so we'll always confirm the live numbers before we scope anything.

Scope it

Digital Discovery

Up to 80% of the cost, capped at €5,000. Funds hiring an outside expert (like us) to map your first or next step in AI. This is where most of our client engagements start.

Build it

Digital Process Innovation

Up to 50% of project costs, capped at €150,000. Covers external expertise and your own team's time. Funds the actual build: a specific AI agent, workflow, or system going into production.

Train your team

Build Capability

Up to €70,000 toward training costs for management and staff. Fits our workshops directly: this funds skills that stay in your business after we leave.

Solve with a university

Innovation Voucher

€10,000 standard, or up to €20,000 co-funded. Pays a registered Knowledge Provider (a university or state research body), not a private consultancy like us. We can't take this one directly, but we've used two ourselves and can help you scope and write it.

If Enterprise Ireland isn't right for you

There's usually still something.

Enterprise Ireland funding only goes to manufacturing and internationally traded services companies. If that's not you yet, or your business sits in a specific region, here's what else is out there.

Route	Who it's for	What it offers	Worth knowing
Local Enterprise Office Grant	Small businesses, roughly under 50 employees, domestic-market	Up to €2,500 (Trading Online Voucher, 50% of costs). Digital for Business: funded consultancy, no fixed amount published.	The most common alternative: probably you, if you're not exporting yet.
Údarás na Gaeltachta Grant	Gaeltacht-region businesses, manufacturing/internationally traded services, 10+ employees	Up to €5,000 (Digital Discovery, 80% of cost)	Runs the same grant as Enterprise Ireland's Digital Discovery, for Gaeltacht areas specifically.
InterTradeIreland Grant	All-island SMEs (Republic + Northern Ireland) doing collaborative R&D-style innovation	€47,400–€67,900 (Innovation Boost, toward a project with an academic partner)	Shaped like an Innovation Voucher, but bigger and built around a named academic partnership.
Western Development Commission Investment	Businesses based in Clare, Donegal, Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, or Sligo	€250,000–€1m equity, or a €50,000–€300,000 loan	Not a grant: this is financing you repay or give equity for.
Invest NI Grant	Micro and SME businesses based in Northern Ireland	£5,000–£20,000 (Business Innovation Grant, 70% funded)	Not open if you're already an Invest NI client.
IDA Ireland Grant	Foreign-owned (FDI) companies operating in Ireland	Up to €300,000 toward consultancy costs (Business Development Programme)	A different audience entirely: multinationals' Irish operations, not Irish-owned SMEs.

Eligibility vs. experience

Anyone can tell you what you qualify for, but...

Most Irish AI consultancies will tell you your grant covers most of the cost. That's true, and it's table stakes. What's rarer is a consultancy that's sat on the applicant's side of an Enterprise Ireland form (two Innovation Vouchers and a place on a Dublin programme, run through VEKT AI itself) and knows what a reviewer wants to see.

How the money moves

Worth knowing before you apply for Enterprise Ireland funding.

01Scope

A short scoping call

We work out what you're trying to do, which route fits, and whether your business is Enterprise Ireland-eligible in the first place.

02Apply

We help you apply

You submit through Enterprise Ireland's own system. We help you write the application in the language a reviewer is looking for: this is the part our own experience changes.

03Deliver

The funded work happens

For Digital Discovery and Digital Process Innovation, that's us. For an Innovation Voucher, it's a registered Knowledge Provider: we can still help you scope and manage that relationship.

04Claim

You claim the grant back

Every one of these is a reimbursement, not money up front: you pay the invoice, then claim the approved percentage back once the work's delivered. Worth planning your cash flow around that.

Questions we get asked

Straight answers.

Can Enterprise Ireland pay VEKT AI directly?

Yes, for Digital Discovery and Digital Process Innovation. Both explicitly fund hiring an outside expert. Not for an Innovation Voucher, which only pays a registered Knowledge Provider (a university or state research body). We'll tell you upfront which category your project falls into.

What if I'm not Enterprise Ireland eligible?

See the table above: your Local Enterprise Office is the most common alternative if you're domestic-market, and there are regional and cross-border routes too (Údarás na Gaeltachta, InterTradeIreland, the Western Development Commission, Invest NI). We can still help you scope the AI work either way, grant or no grant.

Is the grant paid upfront?

No. Every support on this page works as a reimbursement: you pay the invoice, then claim back the approved percentage once the work is delivered. Plan for the full cost to leave your account first.

How long does approval take?

It varies by programme: Innovation Vouchers are typically assessed within about four weeks of a complete application. We'll give you a realistic timeline once we know which route fits your project.

Will these figures still be accurate when I read this?

Every agency on this page updates its own terms from time to time. Everything here was checked directly against each agency's own site. We'll always confirm the current numbers with you before we scope a project, not rely on what's written here.

Ready to check what you qualify for

Tell us where your business is at.

We'll tell you honestly whether Enterprise Ireland funding is the right fit, and if it is, which grant.