Mr. Eamonn May:

In the past three years Business Angels has seen an increase in the activity in that space, which is desirable. Last year 30 deals were done in which Business Angels was involved. It invested €6 million or €7 million in those projects, which was a good development, and we see it adding value not just in terms of capital but its industry expertise also.

The other area which is embryonic, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out internationally, is crowd-funding. It is interesting to note that there is an entrant here, which is small but which will chip away at the establishment, as it were, in terms of bank finance but the regulatory regime will be the issue for crowd-funding internationally.

The Innovation Fund for Ireland, alongside the National Pensions Reserve Fund, attracted some international venture capital, VC, firms into Ireland such as DFJ Asprit, Sofinnova etc. They will write larger cheques, and the Deputy spoke about the €1 million to €10 million space. Investable companies are what is required and if the projects and strong and investable, they will attract the capital. We are currently in the process of evaluating some propositions around this seed and venture capital space, specifically with regard to the venture rather than the seed space, which is much lower. It is in the space the Deputy spoke about, namely, the €1 million to €5 million ticket size.