Bank of Ireland-backed Delta Fund makes Cork the first stop on its roadshow for early-stage and scaling tech businesses across Ireland.
A new Bank of Ireland-backed venture capital fund will make Cork the first stop on a roadshow as it looks for exciting Irish technology businesses in which to invest.
The fund, which is managed by Delta Partners, will invest at the earliest stages of company building, often as the first investor and to support companies to launch their products and services internationally.
“By sharing insights into the VC/Founder relationship, we hope to inspire entrepreneurs to optimise their business building with a network of support from Delta and our partners including Bank of Ireland”
Bank of Ireland is a cornerstone investor in the fund, which aims to invest in 30 of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting tech start-ups.
The Delta team is hosting a special event on 15 September to give the founders of tech start-ups in Cork a behind-the-scenes look at how venture capital investors and founders work together over the entire start-up journey, with first-hand lessons from both sides.
Inspiring entrepreneurs
From left: Maurice Roche, Dermot Berkery, Amy Neale and Richard Barnwell. Photo: Julien Behal
Delta is one of Ireland’s longest serving venture capital players with a strong track record. It has backed more than 120 investee companies to date with successful scaling companies such as Luzern and Sirius XT in the current portfolio. To date, the team has realised €1.8bn from companies such as Clavis (sold to Ascential plc), Sensl (sold to OnSemiconductor) and Neuravi (sold to Johnson & Johnson).
The expanded Delta team – veteran venture capitalists Maurice Roche and Dermot Berkery recently joined by Amy Neale and Richard Barnwell – will invest in 30 of Ireland’s most innovative and exciting start-ups over the next three-to-four years.
Delta’s strategy is to invest at both the seed stage, where it will be the first institutional investor on board, and the Series A stage as companies launch their products and services internationally and require more capital to fund the scaling stages.
“We are excited to host this first roadshow event in Cork, given the number of exciting companies we have had the chance to support in the region,” said Dermot Berkery of Delta Partners.
“By sharing insights into the VC/Founder relationship, we hope to inspire entrepreneurs to optimise their business building with a network of support from Delta and our partners including Bank of Ireland.”
Special guest speakers at the event include Carl Jackson, the founder of one of Cork’s most successful technology companies, SensL Technologies Ltd., which was later acquired by Nasdaq-listed Fortune 500 company ON Semiconductor. Delta partner Rich Barnwell will also share his experience as a hands-on entrepreneur having created Digit Games which subsequently sold to US games company Scopely.
In recent months Bank of Ireland once again joined forces with Delta to launch the new €70m fund as a cornerstone investor alongside Enterprise Ireland and supported by Fexco and several family offices.
Partnering with venture capitalist firms is how Bank of Ireland invests in promising young Irish businesses. As well as Delta, Bank of Ireland has also been involved in successive and successful funds to invest in start-ups and SMEs including venture capital firms like Kernel Capital and BDO.
“At Bank of Ireland we are delighted to see this latest fund coming on stream, providing much needed capital to seed and early-stage businesses at a very crucial point in their growth cycle and when they need it most,” said Paul Swift, head of Technology, Media and Telecoms at Bank of Ireland.
