Venture capital deals up last year

The results for the fourth quarter of the VentureOne/Ernst & Young Quarterly European Venture Capital Report 2004 show the number of early stage deals for Ireland is up on 2003 – with 15 of 42 deals in 2004 attributed to seed and first round fundings compared to 12 of 45 the previous year.

The amount raised by these early stage deals showed a sizeable increase from €22.71m in 2003, 19% of the total amount raised, to €40.1m in 2004, accounting for 37% of the total figure.