Enterprise Ireland third most prolific seed investor in world according to Pitchbook
The Government agency, which is tasked with supporting indigenous firms, beat stiff competition from some of the foremost venture capital investors, including Google’s investment arm, Google Ventures, to rank third globally.
The recognition from venture capital and private equity investment platform, Pitchbook, is a further endorsement of Enterprise Ireland’s work in this area.
The state agency has been the third most prolific seed round investor since 2010, having taken part in 196 rounds in that time.
In second place with two more deals was Paris-headquartered Kima Ventures, while San Francisco’s SV Angel topped the pile with 232 deals over the past five years.
Enterprise Ireland ranked third globally for seed investment https://t.co/3XwSm8CgoF
— Silicon Republic (@siliconrepublic) November 26, 2015
“A key focus for Enterprise Ireland is providing seed capital to start-up companies and we are delighted to have been ranked third among top venture capital investors worldwide including SV Angel, Kima Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz, and Google Ventures,” said Enterprise Ireland executive director Kevin Sherry.
“This reiterates the important role that seed funding, and Enterprise Ireland, plays in providing essential finance to early stage companies as they begin their path to growth.”
While Enterprise Ireland’s strong performance in providing finance to start-up companies has long been realised, concerns have been expressed over the lack of financing for firms moving into their next phase of growth.
Series A and Series B funding, often of €2m to €10m, is often harder to come by for Irish firms.
The head of the Irish Venture Capital Association, Brian Caulfield, warned earlier this year that a fundraising crunch had materialised.
Mr Caulfield said that companies should brace themselves for a difficult funding period as a consequence.
Former Enterprise Ireland executive Pat Byrne said seed funding had been prioritised by the Government but perhaps to the detriment of later-stage funding.
“The Government pumped a lot of early-stage funding into the venture capital firms to do seed capital funding and told them they were going to be monitored not necessarily on the performance of the venture capital investment but on the number of investments made, so that forced the venture capitals to basically start writing cheques for seed capital funding,” said Mr Byrne.
