Sustaining Enterprise and Accelerated Recovery Fund

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Leo Varadkar, launched an additional €51m in funding to help companies in their recovery from the impact of COVID-19 and to accelerate the digitalisation of enterprises.

As part of this funding package, a further €20 million is being provided for the existing Sustaining Enterprise Fund. Up to €31 million is being provided in additional funding for the new Accelerated Recovery Fund which provides liquidity to companies to support significant necessary investment in capital and digital capability for productivity improvements. The funding package also incorporates €9,000 Digitalisation Vouchers to provide strategic intervention for any eligible company wishing to develop a digital adaption plan based on their identified need.

All funding must be provided to successful applicants before the end of 2021.

The Accelerated Recovery Fund

The Accelerated Recovery Fund is open to companies that operate within the manufacturing and internationally traded services sectors which:

• employed 10 or more full time employees on their payroll on 29 February 2020; or
• employed 10 full time employees at the time of application

This fund is open to domestically and internationally traded companies within the definition of manufacturing and internationally traded service sectors.

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for funding, companies must:

• have experienced, or are projected to experience, a 15% or more reduction in actual or projected turnover or profit as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak; the reduction in turnover or profit of 15% or more relates to a comparable quarter in 2019 or 2020
• or have had a significant increase in operational costs as a result of COVID-19
• not have been Undertakings in Difficulty at 31 December 2019 and/or at the date of application, as provided for in State aid law.

Funding

Under this fund, eligible companies can apply for expenditure to support the implementation of an Accelerated Recovery Plan. The minimum eligible expenditure to support the implementation of the business plan is €150k. The maximum support that can be approved by Enterprise Ireland is €1.8 million per undertaking.

Eligible costs will need to be detailed within the Accelerated Project Plan, and must fall under at least one of the following categories:

• capital costs
• implementation costs (covering consultancy and people)
• training costs

Digitalisation Voucher

The new Digitalisation Voucher is a 100% funded grant which provides support to companies as they seek to access the expertise needed to develop a digital roadmap for their business. This expertise can take the form of independent technical or advisory services that relate to the current and future operations of the business, with respect to assessing their digital readiness and identifying opportunities for increased digitalisation across the business.

The Digitalisation Voucher covers the provision of technical or advisory services related to the operations of the business, from an approved service provider up to a value of €9,000

• a maximum daily rate of €900 shall apply
• the support will be provided over a relatively short period but it may be spread out over a maximum of 8 weeks

Eligibilty

Eligible Projects must include at minimum one of the following activities:

• internal process optimisation (Lean-Digital-Automation)
• customer digital experience (Product, Service, Route to Market, Channels)
• data-driven decision making

Sustaining Enterprise Fund

Sustaining Enterprise fund provides from €100,000 up to a maximum of €800,000 which is available to eligible companies over a five-year period, using the following instruments:

• repayable advances, grant aid, equity or loan note
• funding provided will be a combination of repayable and non-repayable support
• up to 50% of the funding provided will be non-repayable, with maximum non-repayable support of €200,000
• an administration fee applies to the repayable element of the funding (that is, repayable advances, loans or equity), as follows: – 0% administration fee on first six months – 4% per annum thereafter
• Repayable Advances are due for repayment in years 4 and 5, that is, no repayment for the first 3 years
• the equity instrument used will primarily be Cumulative Redeemable Preference Shares (CRPs)
• Cumulative Convertible Redeemable Preference Shares (CCRPs) and ordinary equity may be used where Enterprise Ireland seeks to match the terms of other investors
• all funding will be made available against a submitted Sustaining Enterprise Project Plan

Eligibility

Up to €800,000 is available to eligible companies which:

• employ 10 or more full-time employees
• are operating in the manufacturing and internationally traded services sectors on 29th February 2020 or at time of application. The fund is open to (i) domestically traded companies within the definition of manufacturing and (ii) internationally traded service sectors