35 overseas venture capital firms invest in Irish start-ups

5 Jul 2011

There is a serious start-up energy emerging in Ireland and despite having 1pc of Europe’s population, the country is punching above its weight, according to Enterprise Ireland.

A blog post overnight on Enterprise Ireland’s Best Connected blog suggested that in the past few years, 35 overseas venture capitalists have invested in Irish start-ups and/or early stage companies.

“Apparently, these VCs find the quality of the start-ups, the advantages of the country’s business and tax environment and our proximity to the main European VC centres extremely appealing,” wrote Lorcan O’Sullivan, manager in charge of Overseas Entrepreneurship at Enterprise Ireland.

“As you know by this stage, Enterprise Ireland has good relationships with many of these VCs and is, therefore, in a good position to arrange introductions. I think this is one of the many good news stories about Ireland that we really need to tell people about, especially people looking for a good start-up location.”

In recent weeks, it emerged that Ireland has three out of the top eight European start-up accelerator programmes in Europe, a new year-long study has revealed.

The study, commissioned by the Kauffman Fellows Programme in the US, listed the NDRC LaunchPad programme, the Propeller Venture Accelerator Fund and Startupbootcamp Ireland in sixth, seventh and eighth place, respectively.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com