An investment company linked to Irish venture capital fund Suir Valley Ventures will raise about €3.75 million by offering its shares on the London Stock Exchange on Friday.
Sure Ventures plc plans to offer 3.3 million shares on London's specialist funds market on Friday to raise £3.3 million sterling (€3.75 million) to invest in software companies at an early stage in their development.
The company intends to invest the proceeds in Enterprise Ireland-backed Suir Valley Ventures, which has already earmarked several businesses into which it wants to place cash.
Suir Valley is investing in the businesses through an Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle (ICAV), an entity overseen by the Central Bank.
The fund is backing businesses that specialise in financial services technology, virtual and augmented reality and the internet of things, which allows everyday objects to send and receive data by fitting them with computing devices.
Suir Valley is led by businessman Barry Downes, who sold Feedhenry, the mobile software developer that he founded, to US multinational Redhat for more than €60 million, in 2014.
Sure Ventures director, Gareth Burchell, said that raising £3.3 million was a measure of investors' demand for new technology and an endorsement of the company's board and management.
“The team has a proven record of value creation by investing in early stage technology companies,” he added.
According to its website, Waterford- and Dublin-based Suir Valley Ventures has invested in War Ducks, an Irish virtual reality games developer, alongside Enterprise Ireland, Provision, which sells cameras to trucking companies for driver and fleet management, and Wia, a software developer.
