Venture Funds help Irish employment levels

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise Trade and Employment, Mary Harney, recently announced that total investment made in 2001 by the Enterprise Ireland partnership funds with the private sector amounted to almost €28.5 million.

With employment levels within companies currently in the venture fund portfolio put at 3,269, the funding has been used to assist 123 companies in Ireland.

The announcement followed from the publication of the Enterprise Ireland 2001 report on the 'Seed and Venture Capital Measure of the Operational Programme for Industrial Development 1994 – 1999'. This initiative was set up to establish Venture Capital Funds to provide early stage, small and medium-sized growth oriented enterprises in Ireland with equity capital.

The Tánaiste said: "This is the second highest level of investment during the five-year life of the initiative and is a significant achievement bearing in mind that 2001 was the last year for investment. Once again it demonstrates the continuing need of companies to have access to venture capital at various stages of their growth cycle.

"The support of a positive venture capital market is vital to the development of business. It is equally important that the private sector should be the lead players in providing such important funding at critical points in the development of success driven businesses.

"It is very significant that to date the funds have returned €32.3 million and that Enterprise Ireland has re-allocated its portion for further investment in venture capital," the Tánaiste added.

The report noted that 43% of funds were invested in early stage companies and 29% were invested in start-ups.

Some 28% had been spent on developing businesses and 71% of the total invested was in software related projects.

(SP)