Act Venture Capital Launches Sixth Fund Of €140m

Act Venture Capital, the Dublin-based early-stage venture capital firm, has reached the first close of its sixth fund, ACT VI. Over 80% of the fund is already committed with the final closing is planned for later this year.

This is an increase from the previous fund of €92m raised in 2016 and brings the total capital raised by the firm to over €600m.

ACT VI has a broad investor base built over multiple funds, combining leading institutional investors including European Investment Fund, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Enterprise Ireland, and AIB, together with a focused group of entrepreneurial family offices providing both valuable strategic support and co-investment capabilities.

The majority of commitments come from investors in previous funds, showing their confidence in the team and the strategy.

The new fund will target investments into 35 companies across technology sectors and highlights areas of interest in AI/ML, Enterprise, Deep Tech, Health, and Energy & Climate.

It is a welcome announcement for ambitious founders seeking to build the next generation of category-leading companies. Act can be the first cheque in and can invest up to €10m into any one company.

The fund is positioned as a long-term partner to support founders from seed through several expansion rounds, with the capacity to add significant additional co-investment through its institutional investors and extensive family office base.

ACT VI recently completed its first Series A investment into Conjura which offers real-time data analytics across the entire e-commerce operation on a single cloud-based platform.

The fund has also partnered with Enterprise Ireland to establish a Seed Sidecar Fund which has already completed four seed deals into Plasmabound, Trustap, Clearword and Inferex. This enables 70% of investments to be seed-stage and is a vital component of the firm’s ability to partner with entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey.

Act Venture Capital

The firm is led by John Flynn, Debbie Rennick and John O’Sullivan.

Act has been a consistent contributor to the Irish startup and VC ecosystem. It is one of the most active early-stage investors in the Irish market. The current portfolio comprises 47 companies including Ekco, Gridbeyond, Cubic Telecom, Deciphex and Provizio.

The firm has had 20 exits in the last 5 years, including SilverCloud Health (acquired by Amwell), Decawave (acquired by Qorvo), Corvil (acquired by Pico) and Ocrex (acquired by Sage).

“The Irish market has doubled in size in the past 4 years, and we are excited about the future of Irish tech companies and the increasingly ambitious founders that are building them”, said John Flynn, Managing Partner of Act Venture Capital.

“A feature of our maturing market has been the recycling of capital and talent from the increasing number of successful exits, and we are seeing very strong network effects from repeat entrepreneurs. This will see Ireland build larger and more impactful companies.”

“We will continue backing founders that have a mission and values that go beyond financials. Companies that prioritise their ESG impact have proven that, on top of making a positive change, they attract better talent and provide better returns for investors,” added Debbie Rennick.