Irish-US fund worth $100m to be raised for tech sector

A $100 MILLION (€68.6 million) venture capital fund is to be raised by a group of Irish-American businessmen as one of the key components in a strategy to rapidly grow Ireland’s technology sector.

Investors in the first fund from Irish Technology Capital (ITC) include John Hartnett, chief executive of solar energy firm G24 Innovations; Richard Moran, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist; and Johnny Gilmore, chief executive of Sling Media.

Mr Moran, an executive with Venrock, the VC firm founded by the Rockefeller family, said that the fact ITC would be Silicon Valley-based would allow it to “syndicate” its investments to other VC firms in the area.

Irish technology firms have traditionally found it difficult to tap into funding from the valley.

ITC, which is a spin-out from a Silicon Valley-based network of Irish-American business people – the Irish Technology Leadership Group (ITLG) – is in talks with other VCs in the US and Ireland regarding possible investment in the fund. It also hopes to tap the €500 million innovation fund established by the Government as part of its smart economy strategy.

The fund will make investments in the broad technology sector with a particular focus on communications, software, digital media and green technologies.

Following an agreement signed between ITLG, Trinity College, Dublin and University College Dublin last June, the three groups met at the Irish Embassy in Washington yesterday to advance details of how they can work together.

They discussed plans for an innovation academy to provide PhD students with business skills, the creation of the $100 million VC fund and for a business development unit which would accelerate the transformation of university research into new companies and jobs.

The group also gave a presentation to Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan by videolink. The presentation said Ireland should aim within five years to have 20 Nasdaq-quoted companies, two universities in the top 30 globally and 200,000 people working in the technology sector.

The group is building a landmark Irish Tech Centre in downtown San José, which will open next January.

Development of the project will be led by Tom McEnery, a former mayor of Dublin’s twin city.

Mr Hartnett said it would not just be a physical space that could be used by Irish start-ups. “We will be able to surround those companies with a virtual services organisation to provide IT, human resources and legal advice, as well as introducing them to networks of companies they can do business with,” said Mr Hartnett.

ITLG’s members are senior Irish and Irish-American executives working at major technology firms such as Cisco, Yahoo!, Apple and Intel.