AIB seed capital fund expanded

AIB's Seed Capital Fund, details of which were announced earlier this year, was officially launched today by Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mary Coughlan.

Both AIB and its Bank of Ireland have created or expanded seed capital funds as part of the recapitalisation deal.

AIB has earmarked an additional €23 million for the AIB Seed Capital Fund to bring it to €53 million, enabling new start-ups to avail of funding to help grow their businesses.

The fund will target investments in start-up and early stage businesses with a particular focus on technology, financial services, clean and green sectors, and also businesses in the medical devices sectors.

AIB and Enterprise Ireland are joint partners in the new €23m fund expansion, contributing €15m and €8m respectively.

This new fund expansion marks a second collaboration between AIB and Enterprise Ireland under the Venture Capital Programme 2007-2012 in making seed capital funding available to Irish entrepreneurs and businesses. The original €30m AIB Seed Capital Fund was launched in mid-2007 and to date has made 24 investments of over €7m in 20 new early stage Irish companies.

The fund is managed on behalf of AIB and Enterprise Ireland by Dublin Business Innovation Centre (DBIC) and Enterprise Equity and is to be administered from NovaUCD located on campus within University College Dublin.

Commenting on the expansion of the fund, the Tánaiste said it represented "a significant broadening of access to funding for start-up and early stage businesses."