Venture capital summit gets underway in Dublin

A two-day conference in Dublin is to play host to some of Ireland's most promising companies, who will vie for the $40 billion of funds on offer from visiting venture capitalists.

The Goodbody Stockbrokers Summit is taking place on March 20-21 at University College Dublin, and the two-day programme will see firms from throughout Ireland meeting with representatives from both the Irish and the international venture capital communities.

Last year's summit saw presentations from 35 of Ireland's top IT companies and the organisers hope that this year's event will be an even greater success, as the programmes remit has now been extended to cover companies from the Life Sciences sector.

However, Northern Ireland is expected to be under-represented at the summit, with only Andor Technolgies and Fusion Antibodies in attendance at the conference.

This comes only a week after a survey revealed how far local companies lag behind their UK counterparts when it comes to making use of venture capital funding.

The Quarterly Economic and Business Review, which is published by First Trust Bank, revealed that while venture capital has become an established source of business development for firms throughout the UK, Northern Ireland represents only 0.6 per cent of the total venture capital investment for the UK as a whole.

David Lowe, director of business development of Goodbody Stockbrokers in Northern Ireland, said that he felt there were many firms in the province who could benefit from finding out more about venture capital.

He said: "The growth in the number of businesses seeking and using venture capital in the Irish Republic in the last few years has been enormous, allowing many of them to show that it can be a positive and constructive way of developing the potential of their business ideas.

He added: "Entrepreneurs from right around the island must be encouraged by the potential and by the level of interest that exists among international venture capitalists in this market."

(CL)