Frontline Ventures gets €40m in first funding round

Frontline Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund, has raised €40 million in its maiden funding round.

The Dublin- and London-based software-only fund invests up to €2 million in early stage companies.

Frontline raised the first €20 million of this fund at the end of 2013. It has already made eight investments along with international partners.

Frontline is run by partners Shay Garvey, formerly of Delta Partners; Will Prendergast, ex-NCB Venture Capital; and Will McQuillan, who previously worked in start-ups and investment banking.

Kim Pham recently joined as head of platform. She has worked in start-ups and venture in New York and Boston.

"I am very happy that the fund has attracted a wide range of investors including Irelandia, the An Post Pension Fund, Allied Irish Banks and Enterprise Ireland, " Mr Garvey said.

Irelandia is the investment vehicle of Declan Ryan, the aviation entrepreneur and son of Ryanair founder Tony Ryan.

Irelandia invests mostly in low-fares airlines around the world, but it has also invested in life-science companies. It was one of the first investors in Frontline along with Enterprise Ireland.

“The Frontline strategy of investing exclusively in software companies and then syndicating these investments early with international software specialist venture capitalists has proven to be an attractive proposition for both investors and investee companies,” Mr Prendergast said.

“We are a European fund based out of Dublin. We are moving more into the UK, both to find good start-ups and to support our existing portfolio to expand out of Ireland,” Mr Prendergast said.

He said Frontline has opened an office in London, where Mr McQuillan is based, as part of its expansion. Frontline, he said, has already made three investments with operations in the UK. He said Frontline’s portfolio employed 200 people in Dublin, London, Boston and California.

Frontline has invested in its portfolio alongside multibillion international funds including Polaris Ventures, RRE, True Ventures and Floodgate.

Its portfolio of investments includes CurrencyFair, an online peer-to-peer currency exchange; Logentries, a cloud-based log management and analytics service; and Boxever, a big data platform for airlines and travel companies.

Frontline is also an investor in Qstream, Boxfish, PageFair, Orchestrate and Drop.

The venture capital fund recently moved to a new office on Lombard Street, Dublin 2.