Enterprise Ireland has launched NextWave, a new national women founders accelerator programme offering tailored support for female entrepreneurs who have founded high-potential start-ups. The 10-week programme is focused on supporting participants to build momentum towards investor-readiness and accelerate their path to growth.

Delivered in collaboration with Enterprise Ireland and the Irish BICs, AxisBIC, Furthr, Propelor, and WestBIC, the programme offers participants bespoke mentorships, structured learning, and peer connection, with a focus on supporting them to secure pre-seed or seed investment. 

Twenty-four companies have been selected to participate in the initial pilot phase of the programme. Five health tech start-ups have made the cut, including the hugely successful My Moves Matter app, which is the first AI-powered nutrition platform for neurological care, starting with Parkinson’s Disease. It offers easy access to evidence-based, regulated, personalised nutrition therapy to improve health outcomes and reduce healthcare costs.

Also included in the list is Building Bones, a digital health platform that aims to improve bone health, reduce fall and fracture risk, and improve osteoporosis outcomes. It offers a consumer-facing application that builds personalised programs and a platform that integrates into care pathways enabling remote monitoring.

The other healthtech companies participating in this pilot phase are Chemokeyp, which helps sponsors deliver clinical trials safety data at speed; GeoXen, a web SaaS platform for medical researchers; and The MenoPal, which transforms fragmented symptom and clinical data into structured intelligence to support women, clinicians, and researchers worldwide.

Founder-first community

The focus of NextWave is to foster a founder-first community. Those selected for the programme will receive mentorship from local experts and sector-specific founder-mentors, as well as having access to the Enterprise Ireland startup team and investor engagement through Funders-in-Residence and round-robin meetings. By the end of the 10-week accelerator, participants will have validated their product or service with early traction.

Speaking about the launch of the new programme, Jenny Melia, CEO, Enterprise Ireland, said: “Enterprise Ireland is proud to support the launch of NextWave, a transformative new accelerator designed to support women founders to validate and build investor-ready businesses that can scale internationally. This pilot programme reflects our ongoing commitment to advancing female entrepreneurship and ensuring that women across Ireland have access to the expertise, resources, and funding networks needed to grow successful, high impact companies.

Conor O’Donovan, Department Manager, Startups & National Enterprise Hub, added: “NextWave is an innovative step in strengthening Ireland’s startup ecosystem by ensuring that women founders have the tailored support they need to succeed. We’re looking forward to delivering a high impact experience that helps participants refine their narrative, develop their product or service and accelerate their path to growth and investment.”