Senior figures from the world's top venture capital companies gathered in Dublin yesterday to hear pitches from some of the State's hottest technology companies.

Organisers of the SummIT 2001 technology conference said they expected more than $150 million in venture capital investment for domestic companies to be raised as a result of the conference.

High profile investors attending the two-day event include global heavyweights such as Intel Capital, Doughty Hanson and Credit Suisse First Boston.

But it was a local concern, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners (XACP), which announced the first direct funding in an Irish company at the conference. XACP has invested $5 million in Aran Technologies, a company which develops technology for third generation mobile phone systems.

Mr Justin Rea, principal of XACP, said the partnership with Aran Technologies would enable the firm to build on early mover deployment of 3G wireless infrastructure in Europe within the US market.

One of the organisers of the conference, Mr Liam Kiely, senior technology consultant with Goodbody Stockbrokers, said he expected further deals to come to fruition over a sixmonth period. "There are a lot of funds, perhaps $500 million, available to Irish companies," said Mr Kiely. "But we are still some way off the $3 billion available to Israeli companies.

Mr Kiely said Irish technology companies may not be as badly affected by the downturn in the global technology markets as there were more strong infrastructure companies rather than dot.com firms.