Celtic Catalysts receives €650,000 investment from 4th Level ventures

A BIOTECH company based in UCD’s business incubator centre, NovaUCD, has secured €650,000 in venture capital funding.

Celtic Catalysts received the funding from 4th Level Ventures, the investment fund recently launched by Dolmen Securities and Enterprise Ireland.

The company is looking at commercialising its chiral technology, which it has been developing over the past five years in UCD’s Department of Chemistry.

This technology allows the efficient production of pharmaceuticals with reduced side-effects.

The company said the funding will allow it to bring the technology to the market and supply it for industrial use.

Brian Kelly, Celtic Catalysts’ founder said yesterday: “We have extremely exciting technology and fantastic people on board. The investment from 4th Level and Enterprise Ireland enables us to kick-start the development of our technology and brings us closer to generating significant revenues.”

Dr Kelly founded Celtic Catalyst with Dr Declan Gilheany, who also worked in UCD.

The 4th Level Ventures company is a €20 million fund managed by Dolmen.

It is exclusively dedicated to supporting high-potential start-up and early stage companies arising from research undertaken in third level institutions.

“Celtic Catalysts has developed world-class technology with significant commercial potential and we look forward to helping the company to maximise its full potential,” said Ray Naughton of 4th Level.

He said the support systems at NovaUCD would help the company develop.