William Fry-sponsored report records first fall in venture capital funding for tech firms since 2011

The figure is contained in the Irish Venture Capital Association’s (IVCA) latest VenturePulse survey, published today in association with law firm William Fry.

IVCA chairman Alex Hobbs said: “The downturn was triggered by a significant decline in the second quarter when funding dropped by over 50 per cent to €121m compared to €252m in the same period last year.”

Half of the total figure for the second quarter was accounted for by one deal, the €64 million funding round secured by Sublimity Therapeutics.

Mr Hobbs said: “This was the only deal over €10 million in the second quarter. We can’t say for sure whether this is a temporary blip relating to timing of scaling companies funding demand but we did signal in the first quarter of this year that a number of large deals may have disguised a softening in the market. These figures bear that out.”

The number of companies receiving funding in the first half of 2018 was 89, down over 30 per cent from 141 in the same period last year.

The IVCA chairman added: “More worryingly we are continuing to see a dramatic decline in seed funding, down 37 per cent since the first half of 2017. This will have repercussions on the supply of future growth companies.”

IVCA director general Sarah-Jane Larkin called on the Government to co-operative with the IVCA to “put new structures in place that can attract more private funding”.