The Irish Venture Capital Association says VC funding of Irish SMEs grew by 11% to €820m in 2019.
Its VenturePulse survey published in association with William Fry reports that technology companies raised 87% of funding last year. The annual growth was stimulated by a record Q4 when funding grew 120% to €253m from €115m in the same period in 2018.
“The impact of Enterprise Ireland’s new €175m Seed & Venture Capital Scheme (2019-2024) is starting to be felt in the Irish marketplace,” said IVCA chairman Neil McGowan (pictured).
Funding in the €5m-10m category grew to €102m in 2019 from €37m the previous year. The number of companies availing of this level of funding grew to 16 in 2019 from five the previous year.
IVCA director Sarah-Jane Larkin commented: “These amounts are typically raised by scaling companies who are at a critical stage in terms of expansion in employment and revenues.”
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Software companies raised 39% of funds in 2019 followed by life sciences at 20% of the total.
Separately, KPMG noted that in Q4 2019 Dublin-based cybersecurity automation startup Tines secured $15m; Galway firm Siren, a data intelligence company, secured $10m; and Louth-based ocean data company XOCEAN raised $9.3m; Dublin voice assistance technology company Sweepr raised $9m; and network management company Evervault raised $3.2m.
KPMG partner Anna Scally said: "Fintech, which is always a strong element of the overall VC activity in Ireland, was relatively soft in 2019 but was buoyed by some really standout deals. We expect that investment will heat up in 2020 as companies that didn’t need to raise funds in 2019 look for new funding rounds.”
The most notable funding rounds included the $85m secured by financial software company Fenergo, which provides client lifecycle management, AML/KYC compliance and client data management solutions to international banks.
Other notable funding rounds were the $30m raised by student loan provider Future Finance, and $28m raise by Immedis to fund a global expansion in their multi-country payroll and employment tax solutions.
