Venture capital (VC) had a good year in the UK and Ireland in 2006, according to Ascendant, the technology corporate finance advisor.
“The VC market improved during the year with funds invested growing by over 40 per cent to £710m,” Stuart McKnight, managing director of Ascendant, told
EW.
The £710m went into 175 deals with the year ending on a rising trend with £180m invested in Q4. Busiest VCs were 3i, Accel and Esprit which each completed over ten deals. First and second round funding accounted for 65 per cent of all deals, showing investor confidence in high-tech.
The biggest deal was FX Alliance at £42m. Software accounted for £215m, and Internet/mobile service deals accounted for £176m.
After FX Alliance, the biggest deals were: Picsel Technologies at £25m; Pipex Wireless at £25m; Icera at £23m; Apertio at £17m; Real Time Worlds at £16m; Airwide Solutions at £14m; Perlico at £13.4m; 3V Transactions at £13.4m and Digiweb at £13.4m.
Firms in renewable resources/energy grew 300 per cent, accounting for investment of £50m.
Investment in the chip/opto segment fell by 13 per cent to £81m in 2006 compared to 2005, though the number of deals grew to 22.