Atlantic Bridge has announced a €60 million investment fund for early stage companies built on research from third level institutions.
The University Bridge Fund was initiated in a joint leadership collaboration between UCD and Trinity. The Fund’s areas of interest include software, hardware, engineering, physical sciences, life sciences and agri-food.
Enterprise Ireland is investing in the Fund from its Seed & Venture Capital Scheme (2013-2018), supporting its key strategic aim of commercialising Irish third level research into globally scalable businesses which will create high quality jobs, stimulate exports and attract international investment. This significant investment represents its continued commitment to increasing the availability of risk capital for SMEs and ensuring there is a vibrant ecosystem of funding available in the Irish market for all start-ups.
“Irish third level institutions are generating cutting edge research, which we believe has great potential to be commercialised into global companies of scale,” said General Partner at Atlantic Bridge, Gerry Maguire. “Atlantic Bridge will bring world class investment processes, scaling expertise and an international platform to generate strong commercial returns for investors.”
Provost of Trinity Prof Patrick Prendergast said: “Trinity and UCD are committed to achieving both economic and societal impact from our research excellence. This fund will be transformational in supporting our internationally leading research to become globally leading businesses – creating new jobs and enabling new innovative products.”
President of UCD, Prof Andrew Deeks added: “The strong track record, scale and professional supports of UCD and Trinity prompted us to seek out the creation of this fund in the first place. We expect the pipeline of UCD and Trinity companies to account for at least 50% of the investment fund. We are both ambitious and confident that the University Bridge Fund will generate excellent commercial outcomes that will encourage more researchers to become entrepreneurs.”
UCD and Trinity are ranked in the top 1% of higher education institutes worldwide for creating spin-outs and start-ups. The universities are also ranked in the top five European Universities for producing graduate entrepreneurs over the past 10 years – having jointly spun out more 60 companies, securing more than €200 million in investment. Notable successes include Equinome, Logentries and OxyMem from UCD and Genable, Opsona Therapeutics and Swrve from Trinity.
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