€30 million AIB Seed Capital Fund to be located at NovaUCD

The AIB Seed Capital Fund, which is being equally funded by AIB and Enterprise Ireland is the first fund to be established under Enterprise Ireland’s €175 million Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2007-2012.

Welcoming the establishment of the AIB Seed Capital Fund Dr Pat Frain, Director, NovaUCD said, “One of the challenges facing UCD is to accelerate the establishment of new ventures to commercialise innovative ideas and intellectual property arising from its growing research programmes. Two key issues in this regard are access to management expertise and the availability of seed funding.” He added, “This new fund is particularly welcomed since it will focus on early stage high-potential start-ups such as those spinning out from UCD research.”

The average initial investment to be made by the fund will be in the order of €250,000 but smaller investments of €100,000 will also be evaluated. The Fund has an economic life of seven years and it is expected that it will make in the region of 50 to 60 investments.

For further information contact:
Micéal Whelan, NovaUCD, tel: (01) 716 3712, e-mail: miceal.whelan@ucd.ie

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NovaUCD is University College Dublin’s €11 million Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre.  NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business. NovaUCD as a purpose-built centre also nurtures new technology and knowledge-intensive enterprises. NovaUCD has over 40 incubation units, including bio-incubation units, and provides innovators and entrepreneurs with the necessary support and knowledge to take their ideas from proof of principle to commercial success. Twenty-two knowledge-intensive companies are currently located in NovaUCD. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx. For further information visit www.ucd.ie/nova.

The AIB Seed Capital Fund is the first fund to be established under the €175 million Seed and Venture Capital Scheme. In 2006, AIB was selected by Enterprise Ireland to partner with them on an exclusive basis to create a €30 million Seed Capital Fund.  The selection was made as a result of AIB’s participation in a competitive tender process.  For further information visit www.aibseedcapitalfund.ie

AIB’s position in the business banking market is evidenced by independent research (MRBI) which confirms that “AIB has a relationship with one in every two of the estimated 250,000 Irish SME’s” – making it Ireland’s largest business bank. AIB supports SME’s by providing finance for credit worthy and performance related projects.  In 2006 AIB’s total lending to Irish business exceeded €30bn, up over 30% on 2005 levels.

Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2007-2012 Enterprise Ireland is investing €175m in a new round of Venture Capital funding, which will create an estimated overall investment of €1bn in start-up, early stage and development stage businesses. This scheme was announced in May 2006.