Dr. Georgina Murphy:

We are certainly making a very concerted effort to ensure our portfolio of investors, the venture capital investors, from seed through to the venture growth stage, is well balanced from the US and Europe. There is a number of mainland European investors that are increasingly active in the Irish market, in part because of their strategic partnerships with ISIF, and can come in to invest in these companies and serve as a counterbalance to the growth of these businesses.

Historically, we have seen the pace of exits can have a positive impact on the ecosystem in terms of a recycling of capital and talent. We now have a growing pool of repeat entrepreneurs who are very experienced in establishing and scaling deep tech companies but maybe have an ambition now to build a more sustainable business rather than take an early exit. To speak to Mr. Ashmore's point, it is about capitalising on that and ensuring we can invest in a flexible way by both partnering private investors but also, potentially, stepping in and being an active investor in some of these businesses if they choose not to take an early exit and try to scale. Certainly, on the life sciences side, we are seeing the start of that with companies like LetsGetChecked. The company has done a really good job of tapping into the vast US healthcare market as a key market for international growth while keeping a focus on employment in Ireland and leveraging the quality of talent here for manufacturing and product development.