Two new investments funds from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) will target the climate tech and health tech sectors.
ISIF has revealed the new funds as part of a drive to address gender inequality and to promote greater diversity at senior levels both within ISIF and the funds in which it investments.
The organisation, which is part of Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), has revealed a €15m commitment in a first-time fund managed by Blume Equity, a climate-tech investor and a €21m commitment to Norrsken Venture Capital Fund II, an impact focused fund that will focus on seed and Series A investments in climate tech and health tech.
“Women have been under-represented at senior levels in finance for too long and these investments show that our commitment to changing this is now being matched by tangible action”
Blume Equity is led by Michelle Capiod, Eleanor Blagbrough, and Clare Murray, with Eleanor Blagbrough leading Ireland coverage. Eleanor has worked with high-growth Irish companies for over a decade. Blume Equity has recently appointed Lucinda Woods as a Strategic Advisor. Based in Dublin, Lucinda is an experienced finance and strategy leader with a career spanning large publicly listed companies and the start-up and scale up ecosystem, as well as a Board Member of Enterprise Ireland.
Norrsken Venture Capital is led by General Partners, Tove Larsson and Agate Freimane, and it aims to invest at least €21m from Fund II in portfolio companies headquartered in, or having material business operations or projects in, Ireland.
Addressing gender diversity
“Today’s investment is part of a €50m commitment to addressing gender inequality and promoting greater diversity at senior levels within ISIF itself and both the companies and funds in which it invests, which I fully support and am proud to be associated with,” said Minister for Finance Michael McGrath, TD.
“We must never lose sight of the potential benefits that come with greater diversity and inclusion such as better decision making and also economic outcomes for companies.”
ISIF said it is working on a strong pipeline of opportunities with a number of investment firms that align with this initiative.
The initiative aims to build on existing measures by ISIF to drive greater female participation at senior levels within the financial sector.
These include establishing a dedicated programme to measure female representation at leadership positions within the ISIF portfolio, including the extent of female participation on Boards, at CEO level, and investment decision-making level.
“We are delighted to make these two investments, representing over 70% of our initial ambition for committing €50m to investment firms that are founded by or led by women,” said Nick Ashmore, director of ISIF.
“As we said when launching this initiative, women have been under-represented at senior levels in finance for too long and these investments show that our commitment to changing this is now being matched by tangible action.
“These commitments align with ISIF’s double bottom line mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. They also demonstrate the importance ISIF places on supporting high-quality, female majority owned investment firms, to deliver greater diversity in decision-making and more opportunities for women to pursue and succeed in senior investment roles,” Ashmore added.
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