New €65m seed fund for high growth companies revealed by Irish Govt

18 Jun 2015

The Irish Government has created a new €65m seed fund that could be leveraged by venture capitalists.

The Irish Government has created a €65m fund aimed at seeding high growth companies that could be leveraged and co-invested by venture capital companies.

It has made an open competitive call to fund managers in venture capital firms to signal their interest in establishing funds.

“A functioning and competitive venture capital market is essential to our companies if they are to start and scale successfully,” said Enterprise Ireland CEO Julie Sinnamon.

The €65m is the second competitive call under the Seed & Venture Capital Scheme (2013-2018).

Enterprise Ireland is inviting expressions of interest from venture capital firms interested in seeding the next generation of start-ups in Ireland.

Start-ups are seen by the Government as underpinning job creation in future years.

“Two-thirds of all new jobs in the Irish economy are created by start-ups in their first five years of existence – that is why we have developed a range of new supports for entrepreneurs and start-ups as part of our jobs plan,” the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said this morning.

“New funding instruments are a key part of this, including our drive to create a world-class venture capital industry here. Today’s announcement that a further €65m of funding from Enterprise Ireland is being made available to leverage several multiples of that in private sector funding and ultimately invest in fast-growing start-ups is an important step in this drive.”

In 2015 Enterprise Ireland client companies created 19,705 new jobs.

The seed funding will be targeted at high growth areas like food software, fintech, ICT, clean tech and life sciences.

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

editorial@siliconrepublic.com