This year’s HBAN (Halo Business Angel Network) report has revealed that business angels invested €13.6 million in 50 Irish start-ups last year – up 25% on 2015. This includes €1.5 million invested in eight deals completed by Halo Northern Ireland angels. The report for 2016 showed that the investments leveraged a further €20.5 million from other public and private funds, bringing the total invested to €34.1 million.
The average angel investment last year was €272,000, considerably higher than the 2015 average of €217,000. When investment from other sources is included, this is an average investment of €700,000 per company.
HBAN, a joint initiative of InterTradeIreland and Enterprise Ireland, organised 51 funding events throughout the country last year. The events saw pre-qualified high potential start-ups pitch to registered angels in the hope of receiving investment. Companies that received investment last year included Pundit Arena, Glofox, SoopaPets and DiaNia. Key sectors included ICT, healthcare, consumer products and food.
Since 2007, HBAN angels have invested €73 million in 362 separate deals. When the €113 million invested by other funds in those deals is added, this is an overall total of €186 million invested in Irish start-ups in the last 10 years.
“What’s so impressive about these results is that, at a time when there was a shortage of seed funding in Ireland, the average business angel investment per funding round increased by 25%,” said John Phelan, national director, HBAN.
“There was a significant drop in the value of seed funding available in the last couple of years, leaving promising start-ups struggling to source funding. We were delighted to see that our business angels played a significant role in closing that funding gap by increasing the amount they invested.
“Every year, hundreds of promising Irish start-ups approach us looking for smart money – in other words, funding that is paired with deep domain knowledge and mentorship from investors with specific industry expertise. With the start-up community showing no signs of slowing down, we are constantly on the look-out for more angels to join our network and we expect to be announcing even more positive results this time next year.”
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