InterTradeIreland Acumen Programme

Acumen supports companies in Ireland or Northern Ireland to hire cross-border sales expertise and develop the other jurisdiction as a market. Funding contributes to the salary and associated marketing cost of a dedicated sales resource, with rates and ceilings set by the current call. Companies with proven domestic sales that have not yet developed the other jurisdiction.

What this scheme funds

Cross-border sales hire support for companies developing the all-island market.

  • Salary contribution for a cross-border sales resource
  • Associated market development and marketing costs
  • Sales-focused market research in the target jurisdiction

What it does not fund

These costs are routinely ruled ineligible under this scheme.

  • Existing cross-border sales staff
  • General domestic sales activity

Who is eligible

Eligibility is decided by InterTradeIreland, not by Digital Bridge.

  • SME based in Ireland or Northern Ireland
  • Selling into the other jurisdiction is genuinely new or underdeveloped
  • Capacity to co-fund

How to apply

Typical end-to-end timeline: Allow two to three months from enquiry to approval, depending on call timing.

  • Check the current call and eligibility with InterTradeIreland
  • Prepare the cross-border sales plan
  • Apply before recruiting
  • Recruit and claim against the agreed schedule

Evidence you will need

Applications are usually delayed by missing paperwork rather than by weak projects.

  • Sales plan
  • Job specification
  • Company financials
  • Payroll on claim

Why applications get rejected

The recurring reasons assessors give under this scheme.

  • Hire already made
  • Cross-border market already well developed

What Digital Bridge delivers under this scheme

Illustrative net cost applies the published rate (Published support has covered around half of eligible salary and marketing cost) to our published engagement bands. It is arithmetic, not an offer of funding.

  • Cross-border sales site and market-specific landing pages — list from €2,500, illustrative net cost Not covered — Acumen funds the sales hire's salary and related costs
  • SEO and paid-search targeting the other jurisdiction — list from €650/mo, illustrative net cost Some marketing cost can qualify under the salary-linked package — confirm with InterTradeIreland

Who decides this grant, and what we are responsible for

InterTradeIreland decides eligibility, approval and payment under this scheme. Digital Bridge supplies the work and the documentation an assessor asks for from the supplier side.

  • Digital Bridge does not administer, assess, approve, pay or appeal any grant. Every decision is made by the funding body named on the scheme, under its own published rules.
  • This section is general information, not financial, tax, legal or grant-writing advice. It is not an application, a pre-approval, or any form of assurance that you will be funded.
  • Scheme rates, ceilings and eligibility change without notice and several supports are administered locally, so your Local Enterprise Office or agency may apply different rules to the ones published here. Confirm everything with the funder in writing before you commit.
  • Our questionnaire is a deterministic guide based only on the answers you give. It cannot see your accounts, your sector classification, your state-aid position or your previous awards, so it can suggest a scheme you are ultimately found ineligible for.
  • If an application is refused, delayed, reduced or clawed back, our fees for work you have instructed remain payable. We recommend you do not instruct chargeable work until your funder confirms in writing what it will support.
  • Costs incurred before a funder receives your application are almost always ineligible. Timing is your responsibility, and we will always tell you when we think you should wait.

How the ITI Acumen works in practice

Acumen co-funds a sales or marketing hire whose job is to develop cross-border trade — a Republic of Ireland company selling into Northern Ireland, or the reverse. Support runs across the first period of employment and is tied to the person and the cross-border remit, not to general sales activity. The scheme reflects a practical reality: cross-border selling looks easy on a map and is not, with different currency, VAT treatment, customer expectations and buying processes on each side. Applications are assessed on whether there is a credible market to develop and whether the company can support the role after funding. A hire with no cross-border mandate does not qualify however useful they might be.

What we do as the supplier on the quote

A cross-border sales hire usually surfaces a set of digital questions quickly: whether to price in euro or sterling, how the site handles two VAT regimes, whether one site serves both markets or two are needed, and how enquiries from each jurisdiction are tracked separately so anyone can tell whether the role is working. We scope those as concrete items rather than as a rebuild. The tracking piece matters most — a co-funded role that cannot be evaluated against cross-border pipeline is hard to justify continuing, and that decision arrives faster than companies expect.

What determines whether an Acumen hire works?

Acumen co-funds a cross-border sales resource, and the outcome usually turns on preparation that happens before the person starts. A salesperson dropped into a new jurisdiction with no target list, no pricing decision and no clarity on who handles delivery will spend the funded period building the things that should have existed on day one. Decide in advance how you will price into the other market, who owns fulfilment there, and what a qualified lead looks like. Set up tracking that separates cross-border pipeline from domestic pipeline before the hire begins, because you will be asked what the role produced, and a general uplift in sales is not an answer that stands up.

Is this the same as Innovation Boost?

No. Innovation Boost funds a graduate placement on an innovation project with an academic partner. Acumen funds a commercial sales resource for cross-border market development.

Does the hire have to be based in the other jurisdiction?

No — the requirement concerns the cross-border sales remit rather than the employee's location. The role must genuinely be developing trade into the other jurisdiction, and InterTradeIreland will look for evidence of that in both the job specification and the market case.

Source and last review

Scheme parameters checked against InterTradeIreland — Acumen (https://intertradeireland.com/) on 2026-08-21. Reviewed quarterly. Next scheduled review: November 2026. Digital Bridge is a supplier, not the awarding body. Eligibility, approval and payment are decided solely by the funding body named on each scheme. Figures below are the published scheme parameters as at the review date shown, and net costs are arithmetic illustrations of the published rate applied to our published prices. Always confirm current rules with the funder before you commit to any spend, because expenditure incurred before an application is received is almost always ineligible.

Who is Acumen the right fit for?

Acumen suits an SME based in Ireland or Northern Ireland with proven sales in its home market that has not yet properly developed sales in the other jurisdiction, and that plans to fund this by hiring a dedicated cross-border sales resource. Support contributes toward that hire's salary and associated market development or marketing costs, at rates and ceilings set by the current call, which have historically covered around half of eligible cost. It does not fund staff already doing cross-border sales, nor does it support general domestic sales activity dressed up as cross-border work. The most common reason applications fail is that the hire has already been made before approval, or that the target jurisdiction turns out to already be a reasonably well-developed market for the company rather than a genuinely new one. Prepare a cross-border sales plan and job specification, and check the current call and eligibility with InterTradeIreland directly before committing to recruit, since call terms and figures change over time.

How does website and marketing work fit around an Acumen application?

Acumen funds the sales hire's salary and related costs, not a website build in isolation, so a cross-border sales site or market-specific landing pages built by Digital Bridge — typically starting from €2,500 — would not itself be the funded item, though it can be a sensible companion investment to support the new hire's work in the target jurisdiction. Some marketing cost tied directly to the salary-linked package can qualify, including SEO or paid search targeting the other jurisdiction, starting from €650 per month, but this needs confirming with InterTradeIreland against the specific call rather than assumed. Keep the sales hire application and any digital marketing spend as clearly separate items in your own planning, with the digital work framed as supporting infrastructure for the hire's activity rather than as part of the grant claim itself unless InterTradeIreland's current rules explicitly allow it. Note this scheme is distinct from Innovation Boost, which funds a graduate innovation placement rather than a commercial sales role. All funding decisions rest with InterTradeIreland.

How we decide what to quote for Intertradeireland Acumen

Digital Bridge delivers this work from Gorey Business Park in County Wexford on a fixed written scope — one price, one delivery date — and the client owns the finished work outright. Acumen supports companies in Ireland or Northern Ireland to hire cross-border sales expertise and develop the other jurisdiction as a market. Before a figure is given, four questions are answered in order, and a named person signs the scope off — it is never generated automatically.

  1. Is this the right job at all? We look at what you already have online, whether the domain and Google Business Profile are in your own name, and what Intertradeireland Acumen customers currently ask you for. If a repair or a single page would solve it, we quote that instead.
  2. What does the work have to achieve first? The scope is written around one outcome — enquiries, bookings, orders or credibility — and anything else is listed as optional so it can be dropped without renegotiating.
  3. What will it cost and when will it be live? Page count, content readiness, integrations and whether photography or copy still has to be produced set the price and the date, both fixed in writing before work starts.
  4. How will people in Intertradeireland Acumen find it afterwards? Local search setup is included in a build; ongoing SEO is a separate optional retainer you can start or stop with notice.

Checkable facts behind this Intertradeireland Acumen page

Author and reviewer: Joey Bray, founder of Digital Bridge, building and maintaining Irish business websites since 2016. Studio address: Gorey Business Park, Gorey, Co. Wexford. Phone: 085 224 1848. Every claim below can be checked before you speak to us.

  • Published starting prices, not estimates released after a sales call — see the pricing page for the full ladder.
  • Live client sites you can open and test yourself are listed in the work section.
  • One contact from first call to launch, rather than an account handler relaying messages.
  • A plain-text mirror of this page is published for AI assistants at the same path with a .md extension.