The Impact Ireland fund, formed by Dublin-headquartered VentureWave Capital and backed by U2 guitarist The Edge, raised over $13.8m (€11.4m) from US-registered investors in its first close last year.

The fund submitted a regulatory filing covering its first close in the US last week. It also said Impact Ireland has a €250m maximum upper amount to which the fund can increase in the event of oversubscription.

From the formation of Impact Ireland, it has had a target of raising €100m. A spokesman said it was “comfortably on schedule to achieve” the target before the end of the year.

The spokesman said Impact Ireland has total commitments from its existing investors of around €50m. It is also imminently closing a round of funding, including new investors.

VentureWave Capital, headed by investor Alan Foy, founded Impact Ireland seeking investments generating “a return for society as well as investors". It is to target cloud-based technology companies in sectors including education, food and energy.

Impact Ireland made one investment in 2020 in DropChef, the healthy meal platform. It expects to make two investments soon. 

Sunday Independent