Dublin universities UCD and Trinity are jointly backing a €60m fund to invest in companies emerging from third level research. The fund will be managed by Atlantic Bridge Ventures and includes investment from AIB, Bank of Ireland, the European Investment Fund and Enterprise Ireland. It was initiated by UCD and Trinity, historically rivals but recently seeking to make common cause. It will look to back campus companies across all third level institutions here. The fund will invest in companies which are at the state of commercialising their research and will focus on software, hardware, engineering, physical sciences, life sciences and agri-food.
Gerry Maguire, from Atlantic Bridge Ventures, said this is first fund of its kind in Ireland. Mr Maguire said that the European Investment Fund has invested in about 35 funds across Europe and this is one of the larger ones, comparing favourably with funds in the likes of Oxford, Cambridge and University of London. The fund is open to all third level institutions in the country and Mr Maguire said that already a fairly substantial pipeline has been built up. The company is looking at about 100 opportunities right across the country.
Mr Maguire said that Atlantic Bridge will focus on a number of different sectors including hardware, software, physical and material science, pharmaceuticals, medical science and agri-tech and it will also look at companies at various stages of their development. It will look to invest at the low end of about €100,000 right up to investments of €1m for larger companies depending on the sector the company is focused on and their stage of development, he added.
Atlantic Bridge is an Irish fund, based in Dublin, but with international network with offices and people working in London, Silicon Valley, Hong Kong and Beijing. "What we bring to those companies is an international network. We are an active investor and we get involved in the companies and generally take a board seat with the companies," Mr Maguire explained.
Atlantic Bridge is looking for companies that have an opportunity to scale globally. It can then help them to get to that next scale-up step by helping them build management teams, make introductions to potential partners and potential customers, as well as follow up funding rounds.
***
MORNING BRIEFS - Mainstay Medical, a medical device company quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange looking to bring to market a product to treat chronic back pain, has raised €30m. The money was raised through a placing of shares with both new and existing shareholders. The company said it will use the proceeds to support commercialisation of its product in Europe and to fund clinical trials in the US.
*** Adidas predicts the ongoing Euro 2016 football championships in France will push its sales of football boots, balls and replica kits to a record €2.5 billion this year. The German sportswear company makes the kit for nine of the 24 teams at the tournament. It hopes to sell 1.3 million German jerseys alone up from 1 million at the last Euros in 2012.
*** HSBC has paid $1.6 billion to settle a class action suit in the US alleging securities fraud at Household Finance - a subprime lender which it bought in 2003. It is the largest settlement ever in such a case. The lawsuit has been running for 14 years and involved charges that it used predatory practices to entice customers with low incomes and poor credit records to sign up for loans. Those practices included advertised interest rates that were substantially lower than the ones customers were actually charged.
*** The pound rallied overnight from a two month low against the euro hit yesterday. Sterling has the distinction of being the worst performing major currency in the world this year. But it gained against 13 of 16 of its peers overnight including both the euro and the dollar. The rally comes as both the Leave and Remain campaigns are suspended for two days in the UK ahead of next Thursday's referendum on EU membership following the killing of Labour Party MP Jo Cox.
