Despite the second highest three-month funding period on record, the figures show that investment for the first half of the year is down by almost a quarter to €753m
Sarah-Jane Larkin, director general of the IVCA and Gerry Maguire, chairman of the IVCA
Irish venture capital funding into tech and life science firms hit its second highest level ever in the second quarter of the year, with €494m invested in startups and later stage companies.
The figures, compiled by the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA), represent a rise of 7pc on the same three months a year previously.
Seed funding did particularly well, rising 18pc to €53.2m compared to the same period last year. Overall, seed funding rose by 79pc to €93.6m for the first six months of 2024.
The biggest single sector for funding was life sciences, with €297m, or 39pc of the total investment over the three month period.
Environmental technology 13pc was next, followed by ‘regtech’ (12pc), fintech (9pc) and software (9pc).
The top deals in worth over €30m during the quarter included the life sciences firm, SynOx Therapeutics (€70.3m), fintech company AccountsIQ (€60m), cybersecurity specialist Tines (€50m) and marine technology firm, XOcean (€30m).
But while seed funding and large deals saw healthy returns in the quarter, overall funding for the half year fell by almost a quarter (22pc) to €752.7m.
And the the amount of rounds involving sums under €10m — excepting seed rounds — over the first half of the year also fell.
“Deals in the €5m to €10m range fell by 44pc to €27m in the second quarter, compared to the same time last year,” said Gerry Maguire, chairman of the IVCA.
“This worrying trend continued right across all deal sizes from €1m to €5m. It suggests that companies are doing well raising early stage seed funding but are struggling to kick on in the next vital growth phase.”
Mr Maguire said that 90pc of funding for deals valued at over €10m came from international investors.
Recent research by KPMG suggests that VC investment globally rose sharply from €69bn to €86.3bn between the first and second quarters of this year.
However, while VC investment rose to a five-quarter high, the number of deals fell to 7,691, which is the lowest level recorded by KPMG globally since the third quarter of 2016.
Artificial intelligence accounted for over half of the ten largest funding rounds globally during the second quarter of this year.