Dublin-based VC firm Act Venture Capital has closed the first round of its €140m fund for early-stage Irish tech start-ups.

More than 80pc of the fund has already been committed to by investors, with the final close scheduled for later this year.

The company’s sixth and largest fund to date, Act VI will focus on early-stage start-ups across a broad range of sectors including AI/ML, enterprise, deep tech, health, energy and climate.

The fund will target investments into 35 companies, with up to €10m available for any one company. It has the potential to see them through seed rounds into expansion rounds for the next few years.

Act VI follows from the €92m Act V fund raised in 2016, bringing the total amount of fund raised by the company to more than €600m.

Investors in the latest round include big institutional names such as the European Investment Fund, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Enterprise Ireland and AIB, along with a host of entrepreneurial family offices.

“The Irish market has doubled in size in the past four years, and we are excited about the future of Irish tech companies and the increasingly ambitious founders that are building them,” said Act managing partner John Flynn.

“A feature of our maturing market has been the recycling of capital and talent from the increasing number of successful exits, and we are seeing very strong network effects from repeat entrepreneurs. This will see Ireland build larger and more impactful companies.”

Act has been an active and major investor in the Irish tech start-up scene for many years now. Its current portfolio consists of 47 companies including Ekco, Gridbeyond, Cubic Telecom, Deciphex and Provizio.

The company has also led 20 exits in the last five years, including SilverCloud Health, Decawave, Corvil and Ocrex.

Most recently, Act co-led a €15m Series A funding round by e-commerce analytics platform Conjura to support its international expansion.

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