Elkstone Launches Venture Fund II

Elkstone Launches Fund II - Ireland's First All-Island Venture Fund

8th September 2025 - Dublin:

Elkstone, the leading Irish investment firm and private market specialist, today announced the launch of its Venture Fund II, which offers EIIS tax relief to investors.

Fund II offers innovative features that provide a broader cohort of investors access to the very best of Irish Venture. A win for investors by providing access to private markets in a diversified fund, targeting higher returns than public markets - with the added benefit of EIIS tax relief. A win for Ireland, its best technology entrepreneurs, and the domestic venture ecosystem.

Elkstone’s Venture Fund I is Ireland's largest early-stage venture fund at €100m. Since its launch in April 2022, Fund I has invested in 23 Irish startups, bringing Elkstone’s Irish portfolio to over 40 companies.

Elkstone Ventures has supported the creation of over 4,000 jobs (2,500 by Irish Portfolio companies) since 2015 across its Irish and international portfolio, which has collectively raised over €1 billion in follow-on funding to date. Fund II’s investment strategy continues to focus on being additive to the vibrant Irish ecosystem by helping indigenous startups scale internationally, while remaining headquartered in Ireland.

The firm is best known for its top-tier startup portfolio built over the past decade, including several of Ireland's most prominent tech companies, such as LetsGetChecked, Flipdish, Manna, Soapbox Labs and Protex AI. New emerging stars in Fund I include Bluedrop Medical, Cytidel, Lative, Zero Risk and Zerve. Elkstone’s international Venture Club investments, including Thirty Madison, Standard Gas, Ori, Rinse, CloudNC and AudioMob have further amplified its ability to leverage founder and co-investor networks for portfolio company success.

To date, building on the success of Fund I and its Venture Club, Elkstone has invested in over 70 companies, including three unicorns - fostering innovation and generating strong returns for investors.

“Fund II reflects Elkstone’s ambition to be Ireland’s Needed Domestic VC Champion – sourcing and supporting innovative, internationally scalable, and potentially category-defining tech-enabled companies – from Ireland. The support of Enterprise Ireland and ISIF, along with our clients, has been pivotal” said Alan Merriman, Co-founder and CEO.

Fund II offers investors compelling advantages, including strong returns through a diversified, sector agnostic technology-enabled portfolio with the added benefit of EIIS Tax Relief of up to 30% on investments.

Elkstone played a key role in enabling changes to the Employment Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS) by working closely with the Department of Finance to amend the EIIS rules. Through Fund I, Elkstone became the first to launch a fund under the new framework, pioneering the changes it helped to bring about. Over 200 individuals participated in Fund I and Fund II is expected to surpass that with a lower investment threshold of €100,000 applying, which will be drawn over 5 to 7 years.

From an international perspective, Fund II also strategically engages Ireland’s strong global Diaspora as both investors and strategic advisors. Diaspora investors with networks in Silicon Valley, London, or Sydney support Irish startups, offering advantages that pure capital cannot match, such as talent networks, crucial market access, connectivity and credibility in international markets. Ireland needs to do more to engage our Diaspora to support a future Ireland.

Macro challenges to Irelands economy have been well documented in recent months and include global trade tensions - highlighting the country’s heavy dependence on foreign direct investment - creating an urgent need for increased and accelerated domestic innovation.

As Ireland's first all-Island Venture Fund, Fund II’s investment thesis is to back best in class Irish tech-enabled businesses in both the Republic and Northern Ireland- with a clear objective to deliver meaningful impact by investing in Irish companies, creating jobs, and strengthening the domestic economy thereby reducing dependence on multinationals over time.

Sarah Bogossian, Venture Partner and Head of Capital Formation said “Fund II’s investment thesis is to back the best-in-class tech-enabled companies on the island of Ireland from Pre-Seed to Series A – directly addressing the funding gaps where the market need is greatest in Ireland – by providing the appropriate level of capital required for our strongest companies to keep pace with their international peers – enabling our winners to scale at home, not abroad”.

With the launch of Venture Fund II, Elkstone is now broadening its investment scope to include Series A companies. Fund II will continue to support early-stage entrepreneurs while also providing growth capital to scaling companies, thereby increasing its impact on the Irish ecosystem. Importantly, Fund II addresses the key funding gaps at Seed and Series A stages, where the funding gap is the greatest in the Irish market, helping companies transition from initial traction to international expansion.

Fund II extending into Series A addresses Ireland’s scale-up capital gap by enabling Elkstone to support Irish companies by leading later stage investment rounds and follow-on cheques. That matters because of the material impact it will have. This additional domestic capital and the ability to support companies to later stages, keeps teams, IP and headquarters on the island rather than relocating for funding. Investing across both Northern Ireland and the Republic aligns university spinouts, accelerators and all ecosystem stakeholders.

The outcome: larger, locally led rounds, faster paths to Series B and C, and a stronger pipeline of export-led Irish companies with more founders recycling capital and expertise back into the ecosystem.

Niall McEvoy, Managing Director - Venture said, “Elkstone’s investment strategy delivers more than just capital. Our network delivers real impact, beyond capital investment - as our current portfolio companies can attest to. This is further evidenced by the calibre of top-tier international VC’s that have invested in our portfolio companies”