Act Venture Capital, the Irish early-stage venture capital firm, announced that it has reached the first close of its sixth fund – ACT VI at €140M, bringing the total capital raised to over €600M. Act said that over 80% of the funds are already committed with the final closing planned for later this year.
How will the funding be used?
With the new funding, Act will target investments into 35 companies across technology sectors and highlights areas of interest in AI/ML, Enterprise, Deep Tech, Health, and Energy & Climate.
The company can invest up to €10M into any one company, working as a long-term partner.
ACT VI has a broad investor base built over multiple funds, combining institutional investors including European Investment Fund, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Enterprise Ireland, and AIB.
The majority of commitments come from investors in previous funds, showing their confidence in the team and the strategy.
ACT VI
Act’s sixth fund recently completed its first Series A investment into Conjura, a startup that offers real-time data analytics across the entire e-commerce operation on a single cloud-based platform.
The fund has also partnered with Enterprise Ireland to establish a Seed Sidecar Fund which has already completed four seed deals into Plasmabound, Trustap, Clearword, and Inferex.
This enables 70% of our investments to be seed-stage and is a vital component of our ability to partner with entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey.
Led by John Flynn, Debbie Rennick, and John O’Sullivan, Act Venture Capital’s current portfolio comprises 47 companies, including Ekco, Gridbeyond, Cubic Telecom, Deciphex, and Provizio.
The firm has had 20 exits in the last 5 years, including SilverCloud Health (acquired by Amwell), Decawave (acquired by Qorvo), Corvil (acquired by Pico), and Ocrex (acquired by Sage).
“The Irish market has doubled in size in the past 4 years, and we are excited about the future of Irish tech companies and the increasingly ambitious founders that are building them”, says John Flynn, Managing Partner of Act Venture Capital.
“A feature of our maturing market has been the recycling of capital and talent from the increasing number of successful exits, and we are seeing very strong network effects from repeat entrepreneurs. This will see Ireland build larger and more impactful companies,” he adds.
“We will continue backing founders that have a mission and values that go beyond financials. Companies that prioritise their ESG impact have proven that, on top of making a positive change, they attract better talent and provide better returns for investors”, says Debbie Rennick.
