Technology

Irish tech firms pitch to global investors in London

12.11.2009
Over 100 venture capital investors from around the world are meeting today with 31 leading Irish clean-tech and software companies at the Enterprise Ireland International Investor Forum in London.

This key event allows some of the most exciting and innovative of Irish companies to showcase their businesses and present new and attractive investment opportunities to investors from the UK, mainland Europe and Japan.

Making an ‘elevator pitch’
At the day-long event the Irish companies will make their ‘elevator pitch’ to the investors, and will then take part in over 280 one-to-one meetings with individual investors to explore specific investment opportunities.

According to Enterprise Ireland, the event offers a real opportunity for the Irish companies involved to showcase the depth and quality of technology being commercialised from Ireland to established and respected global venture capitalists and other investors.

It is also an opportunity to broaden the international profile of both the Irish clean-tech and software sectors.

Forging links with global investors
Opening the event, Feargal Ó Móráin, Director of Innovation, Commercialisation and Investment at Enterprise Ireland said: “This Forum is a very significant event in terms of forging links between Irish companies and the global investment community.

“The availability of equity finance is a fundamental requirement for the setting-up, growth and development of new knowledge intensive businesses and we see the international investment community as being a critical part of the funding ecosystem,” he added.

Ambassadors of clean-tech and software
The 31 companies participating in the Forum represent some of the best of Ireland’s clean-tech and software innovators.

The types of businesses being showcased include new-generation bio-fuels, inventive solar solutions and technologies to harness ocean energy and deliver electricity to the on-shore grid.

There are also software technologies for energy monitoring and control, and a novel approach to manage household and industrial waste.

Enterprise Ireland has over 140 client companies in the clean-tech sector operating across established sub-sectors such as waste and water and emerging sub-sectors such as renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies. These companies employ almost 3,400 people and achieved export sales of €117m in 2008.

Ireland’s indigenous software industry today consists of over 700 companies employing almost 10,000 people, and reported export sales of €1.1bn in 2007.