Venture capital deals up last year
The results for the fourth quarter of the VentureOne/Ernst & Young Quarterly European Venture Capital Report 2004 show the number of early stage deals for Ireland is up on 2003 – with 15 of 42 deals in 2004 attributed to seed and first round fundings compared to 12 of 45 the previous year.
The amount raised by these early stage deals showed a sizeable increase from €22.71m in 2003, 19% of the total amount raised, to €40.1m in 2004, accounting for 37% of the total figure.
The amount invested overall in Ireland for 2004 was €109.38m, down slightly from €121.05m in 2003.
The number of overall deals for 2004 was 42 compared to 45 in 2003. The decrease in Ireland was much less pronounced than in Europe as a whole, which experienced a 20% drop in activity in 2004.
The number of Irish deals completed in Q4 2004 was 10, an increase of one on the nine in the last quarter of 2003, but down from the 13 deals that occurred in Q3 2004.
The country rankings see Ireland move up one place on its 2003 position to 6th in deals completed, while it retained 7th place in overall amount raised. The UK currently heads both tables.
