Starting up, up and away

In our business we’re lucky to work with some of Northern Ireland’s largest employers and top 100 companies, Moy Park, Asda and Dale Farm to drop a few names. We’re also lucky to be in a position to work with some of the most exciting, innovative young businesses emerging on the local start-up scene.  Invest Northern Ireland’s Propel, now calling for 2014/15 applications, is an annual programme aimed at fast tracking high growth potential, export focussed start-ups. In the past three years, we’ve helped tell the story of some of the participating entrepreneurs or ‘Propellers’ as they’re affectionately known.. from Lucy Annabella Organics, an organic beauty range developed by Colleen Harte of County Tyrone, now available in the UK, Ireland and Europe, to Plotbox, Leona McAllister’s online tool aimed at revolutionalising the way we research our family history.

The current Propel participants include, among others, Keen, a natural nut butter business based in Bangor that we're all nutty about; Indigo Ivy, a fashion label from Doagh that's putting tweed on trend; Islander Kelp, a fresh kelp producer off the coast of beautiful Rathlin Island; a luxury handmade wooden homeware business Harch Wood Couture and Little Deli, an app that hopes to make queuing for lunch a thing of the past (we're all for that!)

With such diverse talent in the mix, we’re excited to see what innovative new business ideas make it through to Propel 2014/15. And with big futures ahead, we’ll always be proud to say ‘we knew them when they were starting out!’

If you believe your business idea has what it takes to go global, check out www.investni.com/propel

Orlagh McVeigh of Harch Wood Couture, current participant on Invest NI's Propel Programme, with Invest NI's Niall Casey