Irish small and medium business raised a record \u20ac533 million in venture capital in the first quarter of the year – more than double the \u20ac237 million raised in the same period last year.<\/p>\n
But the figures from the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) highlight an imbalance in the market, with the quarter dominated by larger deals and things looking less positive for smaller companies looking to raise less than \u20ac3 million. <\/p>\n
The life sciences sector<\/a> was most in demand with funders, accounting for 45 per cent of the funding total in the quarter, according to the VenturePulse survey<\/a>. That was followed by cybersecurity at 22 per cent, software at 9 per cent and fintech at 8 per cent. AI and machine learning accounted for 7 per cent. <\/p>\n Among the five biggest deals were the \u20ac150 million raised by life sciences company Let\u2019s Get Checked, and the \u20ac115 million raised by cybersecurity company Tines. AI company Protex AI, drone delivery firm Manna and medical technology manufacturer Perfuze completed the top five. <\/p>\n More than 80 per cent of the deal value was down to deals worth more than \u20ac10 million. Among individual deals, those in the \u20ac30-million-and-over category rose by almost 90 per cent to reach \u20ac296.8 million, while deals in the \u20ac10 million to \u20ac30 million range were up 184 per cent to \u20ac132 million. <\/p>\n But while deals for more than \u20ac3 million in funding rose, those in the \u20ac1 million to \u20ac3 million category were down 5 per cent to \u20ac21.6 million, and those under \u20ac1 million were down 42 per cent to \u20ac3.6 million. Seed funding was also lower, falling 3 per cent. <\/p>\n Overseas investors played a significant role in funding during the quarter, at 82 per cent compared to 71 per cent a year earlier. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a doubled-edged sword,\u201d said Sarah-Jane Larkin, director general of the IVCA. \u201cWhile it reflects the high quality and potential of Irish tech firms and demand by overseas investors, it also reflects Ireland Inc\u2019s vulnerability to international influences if the tide goes out.\u201d<\/p>\n That is of particular concern given the tariffs introduced by US president Donald Trump and others threatened, which have injected considerable uncertainty into the global markets. The venture capital figures cover the period before Mr Trump\u2019s \u201cliberation day\u201d on April 2nd. <\/p>\n Gerry Maguire, chairman of the IVCA, said there was anecdotal evidence that uncertainty and caution is likely to show up in following quarters, especially among overseas investors. <\/p>\n The VenturePulse survey is compiled from information supplied internally by members of the IVCA and from published information where the funding included non-IVCA members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish small and medium business raised a record \u20ac533 million in venture capital in the first quarter of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":131247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3094],"tags":[51,3457,3134,57861,12308,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-131246","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entrepreneurship","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-cybersecurity","10":"tag-entrepreneurship","11":"tag-irish-venture-capital-association","12":"tag-life-sciences","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114569777338108761","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}