Mary McKenna on Building AwakenAngels and Expanding Access to Investment

Mary McKenna is Co-Founder of AwakenAngels, a women-led angel investment syndicate working to reshape access to capital and support more ambitious founder journeys.

Ahead of the upcoming Interceltic Business Forum, we spoke with her about backing entrepreneurs, building stronger investment networks, and what comes next for AwakenAngels.

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For those discovering AwakenAngels for the first time, can you tell us what the syndicate is, why you co-founded it, and what gap you felt needed to be addressed?

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The four of us had already co-founded AwakenHub in July 2020 during the first COVID lockdown, when everyone was trapped in their homes and many people had lost their businesses overnight. AwakenHub is a large community of women founders across Ireland Northand South which we run as a social enterprise.

Three years into AwakenHub, we realised that the Irish startup ecosystem faced two major challenges in terms of women starting growth businesses.  First, the founders really struggled to access more significant investment once they got past small government grants and friends and family rounds, mostly because they either didn’t have access to the angel networks or because it was unfamiliar ground to them and they were not investor ready.  Second, the number of active Irish women angel investors was pitifully small with representation well behind other European countries.  This second point becomes more important as the Baby Boomer generation starts to age and we approach intergenerational wealth shift or what the US calls “The Great WealthTransfer”.

We formed AwakenAngels as a syndicate, so the individual investors choose the companies/founders that they want to invest their money in.  We have in-person or online pitch nights every month.  The minimumt icket price for an investment is £/$/€2,000 which makes it affordable for most working people and importantly for founders themselves as well.  3 years in, we have 150 angels, the syndicate has invested in 10 companies, it’s unlocked a further €5m for those foundersthrough our co-investing practices and we have a strong pipeline of companies for ongoing investments.  

We’re happy with our progress to date but having trained 80 or so first-time women angels through our AwakenAngels Academy,we’re now focused on bringing more experienced investors (women and men) into the syndicate.  Our founders are all based on the island of Ireland but our investors can be anywhere and any nationality – they just need to have some affinity with Ireland and an ambitionto get involved with Irish startups. We’ve been blown away by the support we’ve received so far from our diaspora on the US eastern seaboard but we also have angels in the UK and across Europe and some new inbound interest from the Irish community in Australia.

You’ve been an entrepreneur, an investor, and now a major ecosystem builder. How has that journey shaped the way you back founders today, and what do you think too many investors still miss?

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It may seem at first glance like a random career path but everything I’ve done for the last 25 years and maybe even longer than that is linked.  As an entrepreneur that bootstrapped my business because it wasn’t possible for me as a woman techfounder to raise investment 20 years ago. I’d never really encountered any gender bias in my career journey prior to that.  Before starting a business I’d had a successful corporate career in London and Silicon Valley.

This experience opened my eyes to the truth of how much harder it is for women who set out to build a scaling, global business and when I sold my business, I decided to start angel investing in women-founded teams.  That was 12 years ago and I’ve so far invested in 40 or so early stage founders.

I didn’t think I would start another venture but 2020 was the right time to start AwakenHub and I was lucky that three of my friends were up for it too. We’ve come a long way since then with the help and support of a lot of people and organisations.  

As to what investors might miss … in my view, many are hunting for unicorns when perhaps they should be seeking zebras.  I guess the other aspect to this, and one that we’ve found with many of our syndicate members, is investing is a great way to get involved in startups by sharing your own professional skills and this can lead to personal satisfaction and the joy that comes from helping others get on.

A big theme at this forum is building cross-border opportunity. From your perspective, what role can networks like this play in helping founders and investors create more ambitious, international businesses?

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We consider AwakenHub especially to be different from the many “networks” that already exist.  We’ve purposefully created a supportive community that’s populated by exited founders, corporate professionals, investors and mentors … many of whom also just happen to write cheques.  We started life in a post-Brexit world soeven to work across Ireland we had to immediately operate cross-border.

Having said that, the four of us have extensive personal networks that most founders can only dream about and wedon’t hold back from opening those little black books of connections to benefit our members.  

We pursued a campaign early doors to engage with our US Irish diaspora as we recognised how this matching between investors and founders builds on the already close relationship Ireland has with the US and how bringing an angel on board from a target market as early as possible really accelerates an early-stage company’s entry into that market.  We have numerous examples of how this has worked for AwakenAngels portfolio companies with Irish-American angels based inthe US.

Next, we plan to replicate this “prototype”with angels in the Bay Area and by building closer relationships with other European angel syndicates who are similar to us.

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Looking ahead, what are the next steps for AwakenAngels, and are there any future projects or priorities you’re especially excited about?

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Every two years we run a two day event for300 or so investors and founders in Ireland. It’s called SheVentures and it’s happening 7-9 June on Lusty Beg Island in County Fermanagh.  It’s like no other conference that exists and we’re currently in the middle of assembling a magical and unmissable mix of speakers and activities – so that’s something our whole teamand community is looking forward to.

Personally, I’m hitting the speaker circuit hard between now & the end of June with speaking engagements to promote AwakenAngels happening in Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Portugal, London and of course, the Isle of Man.

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