NDRC start-ups surpass investment expecations

Companies which received investment from NDRC have cumulatively secured €40 million in commercial follow-on investment from angel and venture capital investors, the Dublin-based early stage investor in innovation said this morning.

The companies in NDRC’s portfolio have a combined market capitalisation of about €120 million.

These companies include Soundwave, a music discovery app, which closed an investment round of $700,000 in 2013; LogEntries, a company specialising in log data, which closed an investment round of $10 million in 2013; and NewsWhip, which tracks huge volumes of content to highlight breaking and trending news stories and which closed an investment round of $1.1 million in 2013.

Looking ahead, Ben Hurley, NDRC chief executive, says it has a "three point plan" for 2014.

“Continue our early stage investing through our established investment programmes; introduce a number of targeted initiatives for startup founders to complement these programmes; and - recognising the evolving innovation ecosystem - explore new ways of addressing gaps within the early stage venturing ‘valley of death’.”

As such, NDRC will look to build on its proven and matured investment programmes by running two investment programmes: NDRC LaunchPad and NDRC VentureLab, Europe’s first venture accelerator dedicated to science commercialisation.

NDRC will also introduce a number of specific initiatives for very early stage technology ideas, including a domain-focused “FinTech” (financial technologies) startup initiative, which is currently under advanced stages of development with major industry players and key state agencies.

NDRC will also launch a female entrepreneurship initiative that complements NDRC’s existing investment programmes.