Image: © igor/Stock.adobe.com
Backed by an investment from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, the €50m fund will invest in ‘promising’ Irish tech companies and their founders.
Molten Ventures, a European venture capital firm, has launched a new fund to invest in high-growth tech companies based in Ireland.
Announced today (28 July), the fund has a value of €50m after its first close, and the figure is expected to increase after an additional syndicated partner joins. Existing shareholder ISIF, or the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, has committed nearly half of the fund’s value.
Previously known as Draper Esprit, Molten Ventures is one of the most active and well-known VC firms in the Irish market, having funded companies such as Manna Drone Delivery, Sweepr, &Open and Vaultree over the 10 years it has operated here.
Some of its past successful Irish investments include Movidius and Clavis Insights. The firm, which has also backed Revolut, is headquartered in London.
CEO Martin Davis said that the VC firm has “always been invested” in Irish start-ups because the country is a “key European centre” for the global tech industry.
“The launch of our new Irish-focused fund continues our long-standing relationship with ISIF as a strategic partner and enables us to continue to back promising Irish technology companies and visionary founders inventing tomorrow.”
As of July 2023, Molten Ventures has a portfolio of 87 businesses, including ‘core’ companies Thought Machine, Coachhub, Graphcore, Aiven, Ledger and Aircall. It largely focuses on enterprise tech, hardware and deep-tech, consumer tech, and digital health and wellness.
The firm said it looks for companies that have a high potential for global expansion, strong IP and management teams, as well as the potential to generate strong margins to ensure “rapid, sustainable growth in substantial addressable markets”.
Last month, Molten Ventures announced it led a €5m funding round for employee wellbeing start-up Oliva. In May, led a £12.7m funding round into Satellite Vu, a UK-based climate company working on thermal imaging data.
10 things you need to know direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of essential sci-tech news.
