Since 2023, the state agency has made 38 individual investments of €1m or more into Irish companies via grants, equity investments and R&D projects. It includes one single investment of €4.3m.
In an Irish Independent interview, Leo Clancy said the agency is planning for more indigenous Irish firms to scale to between 10,000 and 50,000 employees – a move that could act as a counterweight to multinational giants, which are currently bankrolling the country through bumper corporate tax receipts.
I think we need a couple of tech start-ups of a global scale
He said that this would be addressed partially through larger “scaling” grants for indigenous companies ready to take bigger, more ambitious steps.
“That’s the space we’re thinking about right now,” said Mr Clancy.
“The place I’m most worried about is bridging [finance] into strong A-rounds or early B-rounds… We’re seeing companies struggle at the moment to raise rounds of €3m to €15m.
“I think we need a couple of tech start-ups of a global scale that can have their home presence here and a large economic impact.”
Mr Clancy said Enterprise Ireland will announce more details of its plans to help “scale” companies into larger entities in the agency’s new five-year plan in January.
“If we had, in 10 years’ time, 10 companies employing 50,000 people and a third of each of those workforces were in Ireland, that would be incredible,” he said.
“The key for us will be how we help them access the capital to keep growing. I think Irish enterprises can be the primary driver of our economy, even alongside a growing FDI sector.”
If we’re not making positive investment returns, we can’t fund the agency
At present, EI disburses about €320m a year through various schemes, grants and subsidies to thousands of beneficiaries, ranging from tiny micro-businesses to publicly-quoted corporations. It claims that around 225,000 people are employed through EI-backed enterprises.
While most of EI’s 38 individual investment rounds of over €1m in the past 20 months aren’t disclosed, they include a €4.33m research and development grant to Icon Clinical Research, one of Ireland’s largest companies, which is listed on the Nasdaq exchange with a market cap of €22bn.
The grants also include €3.4m to the Galway medtech firm Endowave, €2.9m to the Limerick biotech company Serosep and €2.7m to Dublin sauce-making company, Blenders Unlimited.
Mr Clancy said that the agency – which is Europe’s most active seed venture capital organisation – needs to make around €80m in portfolio cash returns each year from its investments. “If we’re not making positive investment returns, we can’t fund the agency.”
Last year, it made €68m, while in 2022 it was €75m.
In recent years, some of its investments have yielded oversized returns, including stakes in Barry Napier’s Cubic Telecom, which sold a majority stake to Japan’s SoftBank last year for €473m.