The “Golden Aurora”, the prize for Europe’s female angel investor of the year, goes to Ireland in 2023 to Irishwoman Mary McKenna. McKenna was able to prevail over six European finalists in the final selection. The award was presented on Wednesday, 5 July 2023, as part of the DemoDay: “Women Angels Mission ’25” in Berlin – presented by Dr. Anna Christmann MdB, Commissioner of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) for German Aerospace and Commissioner for Digital Economy & Start-ups.
This year, the “Golden Aurora” was awarded for the seventh time by Business Angels Deutschland (BAND), the association of business angels and their ecosystem in Germany, and Business Angels Europe (BAE), the European federation of national business angel associations. The award shines a spotlight on the important contribution of female business angels, who continue to be underrepresented.
Mary McKenna studied business administration at Lancaster University (UK) and is now a technology entrepreneur, serial angel and self-proclaimed “border crosser”. After a lengthy government career and time in Silicon Valley, she co-founded the successful online learning company Learning Pool in Derry in 2006. In May 2014, she left the company to work with early-stage start-ups. She still does so today. Her focus is on the creation and growth of Irish and UK technology companies, particularly working with young women entrepreneurs. Her portfolio companies include Aflo Analytics, a company that automates correct inhaler technique for asthma and COPD, MoveTru, which allows athletes to customise their performance tracking, and Right Revenue, a rate management software for hotels – all start-ups founded by women.
McKenna is also an entrepreneurship expert at Said Business School (Oxford University), an expert advisor to the EU and a number of tech companies, and co-founder of AwakenHub, a growing community of women founders across the island of Ireland.
The award winner, who hails from Donegal in the North West of Ireland, says of herself: “Just being interested in making money is quite sad. I’m mostly interested in early-stage companies as it gets more and more boring as you get bigger. Angel investing is a way to grow the ecosystem, and that’s much more interesting to me than just making money.”
Mary McKenna was chosen by an international jury chaired by Dr. Anna Christmann MdB, Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) Commissioner for German Aerospace and Commissioner for Digital Economy & Start-ups, Reginald Vossen, President Business Angels Europe (BAE) and CEO Business Angels Network Flanders, as well as several Golden Aurora award winners from previous years.
The award ceremony of the “Golden Aurora” was the culmination of the DemoDay of the awareness campaign “Women Angels Mission ’25” initiated by BAND, which has the vision to motivate more female business angels to invest in start-ups in order to sustainably change the business angels ecosystem towards more gender diversity.
