More than 80 venture capital investors have met the best start-up and scale up companies from across Northern Ireland at a two-day event organised by Catalyst.
The Inbound Investors programme will saw Belfast play host to a range of external venture capitalists, family offices and syndicates.
Among the well-known investment firms meeting innovative Northern Ireland tech founders are Ada Ventures; Amadeus Capital Partners, Deepbridge Capital; Downing LL; Draper Esprit; Foresight Group; Forward Partners; Fuel Ventures; IQ Capital Partners; Mercia Asset Management; Octopus Ventures Ltd; Par Equity; and Playfair Capital.
Catalyst said that while some of the VCs have already invested in Northern Ireland companies, many are taking an interest in local companies for the first time and are coming to Belfast primed to explore investment opportunities.
The investors included early stage specialised Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme funds, early-stage investors in pre-revenue companies and growth investors looking to expand companies with £1 million plus revenues. They include specialists in media, consumer, female founded companies, clean tech, trans-Atlantic, social impact, health and life science, and more.
Some of the Northern Ireland-founded companies taking part in panels or being matched with investors include Cattle Eye, We Are Paradoxx, Statsports, Lightyear, Trimedika, B-Secur and Locate a Locum.
Alan Watts, director of Director of Funding at Catalyst and organiser of Inbound Investors said there is a thirst for Northern Ireland’s startup companies.
“We have seen interest in innovative, high potential Northern Ireland companies growing over the past few years from the UK and international VC community, which can be seen in some of the funding rounds secured by firms like Sidequest, Cloudsmith, Cumulus Neuroscience and B-Secur over the past 12 months,” he said.
“Inbound Investors will see the largest number of funders ever to come to Northern Ireland at the same time and represents a great chance for more of our companies with global aspirations to meet them one-to-one and accelerate their path to securing potential funding. The VCs in attendance are interested not just in companies who are raising now, but also in building relationships towards future potential rounds. We hope a number of deals will originate from the connections established here.”
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