By Business & Finance 
Pictured (L-R): Brian Long, managing partner, Atlantic Bridge; with Richard Bruton TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation; and Kevin Sherry, Executive, director, Enterprise Ireland
Atlantic Bridge, one of Europe’s top performing technology funds, has today announced the first close of Atlantic Bridge III, a €140m fund for technology companies with global market scalability.
The Dublin-based fund will invest in up to 20 European companies, with investments already closing in seven companies.
Atlantic Bridge III will focus on scaling Irish and European companies in high growth enterprise technology sectors such as cloud, big data, augmented and virtual reality software, robotics and IoT.
Participants in the new fund include existing Atlantic Bridge investors, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, Enterprise Ireland and the European Investment Fund, along with new institutional investors, including British Business Bank Investments, the commercial arm of the British Business Bank, and a number of institutional pension funds.
Atlantic Bridge also welcomes AIB as a new investor into the Atlantic Bridge III fund and as the strategic banking partner across all its funds.
Atlantic Bridge is the largest indigenous Irish and one of the largest European technology funds, with offices in Dublin, London, Silicon Valley, Beijing and Hong Kong. It has led investment of over €100m in Irish companies. The latest fund brings the total assets under management of Atlantic Bridge to €400m.
Atlantic Bridge also co-manages, with its Chinese partners West Summit Capital, Summit Bridge Capital – a $100m China-Ireland technology fund.
Brian Long, managing partner, Atlantic Bridge, said: “We already have a number of pipeline investments identified for the fund and are confident that this will build on the track record of success of our previous funds. As a growth equity stage fund, Atlantic Bridge III will focus on taking companies with a solid and exciting business model to the next level, scaling them into key international markets like the US and China.”
Eugene O’Callaghan, director, Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, added: “The Atlantic Bridge model of connecting Irish technology companies with key global markets makes it a key component of the funding landscape and we are excited to continue our partnership with Atlantic Bridge for fund III, following the strong performance achieved by fund II. This investment aligns with our dual objectives of generating economic impact and financial returns and we look forward to seeing it support rapidly growing Irish companies in accessing customers, investors and partners in global markets in the US, China and Europe.”
