Investment in the UK technology sector has continued to grow throughout the year, according to Ascendant, the technology corporate finance advisors.

“The uplift in activity we reported in Q1 was sustained in Q2,” Stuart McKnight, managing director of Ascendant, told EW. “In the first half, approximately £360m was invested in 88 deals by 142 investors. In the first half of 2005, £270m was invested in 78 deals by 116 investors.”

The biggest deals were Pipex Wireless (£25m), Icera (£23m); Apertio (£17m); Airwide Solutions (£14m); Ocean Power Delivery (£13m); Picochip (£11m); Empower (£10m); and Anam Mobile (£9m). In total, 21 UK and Irish companies received first round investment of over £500,000 each.

The most active investor was Accel, with ten deals. The next most active investors were 3i, Benchmark, Close Venture, Esprit (Cazenovia/Prelude) and Foresight Venture Partners.

The biggest investment growth area concerned companies operating in the sphere of cleaner, renewable, power reducing energy products, which grew 1,100 per cent.

Other fast-growing areas were wireless/software which grew 290 per cent, and Internet/wireless services which grew 267 per cent.

The value of deals in the semiconductor/optoelectronics sector was largely static.