Delta Partners announces final closing of DEF II

Dateline: 19 October 2001

Delta Partners, the early stage technology venture capital firm based in Dublin, has announced the final closing of its third fund, Delta Equity Fund II at €90 million, up from its initial closing at €65 million last February.

The extension of the fund follows further investment from Delta Equity Fund II's initial investors as well as a new investment from Enterprise Ireland. Enterprise Ireland now joins Delta Equity Fund II's investors, comprising Bank of Ireland, Bank of Ireland Asset Management (BIAM), BancBoston Capital, Wellcome Trust, European Investment Fund (EIF), Vertex, Hibernian Asset Management and a number of other Irish, European and US institutions.

To date, the majority of investments from Delta Equity Fund II have been made within Ireland and have focused on start-up and early stage technology investments in communications technologies, software and life sciences.

Delta Partners is often the first institutional investor in a company, typically investing €2 - 5 million and taking a minority shareholding. Delta leads nearly all of its investments, bringing other leading international investors on board where needed.

Through the new fund Delta Partners has invested in ten investments to date: Kadius Systems, Voxsurf, Calaba, Artic Web, Similarity Systems, Aircraft Management Technologies, M-spatial, Tsunami Photonics, Headway Software and Prime Carrier.

Frank Kenny of Delta Partners comments: "We are pleased to close the fund and see it as a commitment from Institutional Investors to early stage technology investment in Ireland. Despite the recent global tech downturn we believe there are excellent investment opportunities in Ireland. The biggest change has been the marked improvement in the quality of the management teams we see when compared to the mid 1990's when Delta began investing in Irish early stage technology ventures."

Delta Partners Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland