The level of venture capital investment has fallen sharply in the last year, but there should be a significant improvement in 2004, according to a survey from Ion Equity.
The company said venture capital investment in Irish technology and life science companies had fallen by 44 per cent in 2003.
About Ђ154 million was invested last year, whereas during the boom years, investment often exceeded Ђ620 million.
The major Irish venture capitalists, ACT, Trinity, Delta and Bank of Scotland (Ireland) made few new technology investments in 2003, although they did provide finance to existing clients.
The poor results in 2003 were largely the result of weak investment activity in the final two quarters with less than Ђ20 million invested in each quarter. This represented the lowest quarterly investment figures since 1998.
