Dr Pat Frain, Director NovaUCD
AIB will base its €30 million Capital Fund at NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at University College Dublin. Funded in equal parts by AIB and Enterprise Ireland, this 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 Seed and Venture Capital Scheme 2007-2012 sees Enterprise Ireland 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.
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.
