Enterprise Ireland ranked third globally for seed funding

Enterprise Ireland has been ranked in third place ahead of well-known venture capital (VC) firms such as Andressen Horowtz and Google Ventures in a new poll of top seed investors.

PitchBook, a leading VC and private equity investment platform, which is regularly used by over 70,000 professionals to profile start-ups awarded top spot to SV Angel with 232 seed stage investments since 2010.

Kima Ventures was ranked in second place wtih 198 deals, while Enterprise Ireland took third with 196 investments. Andresson Horowitz and Google Ventures round out the top five seed stage investors with 134 and 131 deals respectively.

Kevin Sherry, executive director at Enterprise Ireland said he was delighted to see the organisation ranked so highly given that providing seed capital is a key focus for the body.

Since the beginning of 2010, 2,387 VC investors have participated in at least one seed round globally, according to PitchBook.

During the timeframe, VCs have completed an increasing number of seed financings each year, with annual deal count jumping from 484 in 2010 to 1,943 last year.

PitchBook said this upward trend looks like it will end in 2015, however, as investors have completed only 1,215 deals so far.

It added that even with the number of seed rounds trending lower than previous years, capital invested at the stage has stayed strong with VCs having pumped $1.97 billion into seed investments this year, surpassing last year’s total of $1.95 billion.

Pre-money valuations for these rounds have seen a steady uptick year-on-year, growing from $3.2 million in 2010 to $5.9 million in 2015.