Irish Tech companies raised €269m in 2012 – IVCA

Irish technology companies raised €274 million from investors in 2011, down from €310.2 million in the same period of 2010, according to a survey by the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA). The report also found a sharp falloff in funding for the second half of 2011. The was some good news in the area of early stage start-ups, where 82 companies raised €104.9 million in 2011, up from €71.2 million across 62 companies. IN total, 547 Irish SMEs raised venture capital of €1.1 billion since the onset of the credit crunch in 2008.

"The Irish venture capital community continues to be the main source of funding for Irish high tech SMEs," said Regina Breheny, director general, IVCA. "These funds were raised almost exclusively by Irish VCs who during this period supported the creation of up to 20,000 jobs."

Breheny added that since 2008 Irish VCs had attracted over €450 million of capital into Ireland and geared up the State’s investment through the Seed & Venture Capital Programme by almost seven times.

"This decline is largely due to a pull back by overseas VC investors," commented Maurice Roche, Chairman, IVCA and partner, Delta Partners. "We have serious concerns that Irish venture capital firms too will start to run short of funds in 2012. This will place a major brake on the future expansion of Ireland’s indigenous tech sector. In particular start-ups that have received investment in recent years from the seed funds will have great difficulty raising additional capital."

TechCentral Reporters