The second quarter of the year saw Irish firms win the second highest level of venture capital funding on record.
In total the amount of investment secured was up 7%, new data from the Irish Venture Capital Association (IVCA) and William Fry shows.
However, for the half year, funding overall is down by almost a quarter at €752.7m.
While the information also shows there were gaps in deals under €10m, apart from in the case of seed funding.
"Deals in the €5-10m range fell by 44% to €27m in the second quarter, compared to the same time last year," said Gerry Maguire, chairperson of the IVCA.
"This worrying trend continued right across all deal sizes from €1-€5m."
"It suggests that companies are doing well raising early-stage seed funding but are struggling to kick on in the next vital growth phase."
Another potential difficulty highlighted by the data is that while the number and value of deals in the €10m plus range had performed well in the second quarter, over 90% of this funding came from international investors.
"This is a testament to the quality and ambition of Irish companies, but points to the importance of having Irish funds of scale that can co-invest or lead these rounds," said Mr Maguire.
"This really highlights the need to increase the availability of growth finance from local sources."
Life sciences secured the largest portion of the funding with €297m followed by envirotech, regtech, fintech and software.
The top deals during the period that were worth over €30m were regulatory compliance company, Corlytics, and life sciences firm, SynOx Therapeutics, which secured €70.3m.
Seed funding between April and June grew by 18% to €53.2m compared to the same three months last year and for the half year was up 79%.
"While seed funding remains robust, the IVCA is looking forward to the report of the implementation committee set up by Peter Burke TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment, on measures to assist these exciting, high potential start-ups take their next steps through greater access to scaling finance," said Sarah-Jane Larkin, director general of the IVCA.
