Damien Mulley

A seriously What The Fuck moment. So after all the hype from Enterprise Ireland and the Govt and so so many more folks, that investment fund of 175 Million that EI had to dole out to the large VC companies is now being spent on investing in UK companies? Delta got 15 Million of essentially OUR money and stuck it into their own fund and now part of that is being invested in a UK company from what I read from the link above.

I’m sorry but that’s utter bollox. While I don’t like the EI fund anyway for a few conflicting reasons:

1. I’m truely wondering is the handout mentality a good thing for Irish Companies.
2. I really think giving massive sums to VC funds means the money is just another pension fund for the Govt and given the ultra conservative criteria from EI it encourages the VC funds to only invest in sure things. Sure things are not YouTube or Facebook. In my view the 100M should instead be split into tiny pieces and invested for equity in small startups.

I don’t think any Irish money should be invested in anything but Irish companies.

Some quotes:

Making the announcement the Minister said:

“I am delighted to announce the creation of the new €100m Delta Partners fund. This fund will significantly increase the availability of early stage capital for Irish companies. I would like to congratulate Delta Partners on their success in attracting such significant investment in bringing this fund to first closing.”

Ian Paisley, who Micky Martin does a great impression of by the way, will not be happy with the Govt now saying UK companies are actually Irish.

Enterprise Ireland invested €15 million in Delta’s fund as part of the state agency’s new €175 million seed and venture capital scheme.

It has agreed funding deals with a number of venture capital companies, which are expected to announce details of new funds in the coming weeks. The National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF) is also understood to have invested €15 million in the Delta fund.

The bloody pensions fund us investing it them too, arghhh. In the States they do some clever social justice stuff using pension funds. They will only invest in companies that respect privacy properly, will only invest in companies that promote full equality etc. etc. With the clout of the EI money and the pension fund money, surely it should be invested in Ireland or is this a sign that EI and the Govt believe that Irish companies are just not worth investing in?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under business, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.