To commemorate St. Patrick’s Day, Tracxn takes a look at some of the most influential and prominent Irish Venture Capitalists across the globe
Brian Caulfield @BrianCVC
Brian has been a Partner at Draper Esprit since 2010. Besides being a VC, he is a serial entrepreneur, previously founding software companies Exceptis Technologies which was acquired by Trintech Group, and Similarity Systems that was acquired by Informatica. He sits on the board of numerous Irish startups including Datahug, Movidius, MTT and the Irish Times, and has personal investments in companies including Cicero Networks and GridStore.
Dylan Collins @MrDylanCollins
Apart from being a Partner at Hoxton Ventures, an early-stage VC, Dylan Collins is also a startup veteran. Besides being the CEO of SuperAwesome, a digital marketing platform for kids, Dylan also sits on the board of animation company, Brown Bag Films and Potato, a marketing agency. Collins also acts as an ambassador for Enterprise Ireland, an Investment Fund focused on global founders who want to locate their startup in Ireland.
Elaine Coughlan @coughlanelaine
Elaine Coughlan is a co-Founder and Managing Partner of Atlantic Bridge Capital, a Global Growth Equity Technology Fund. She also co-founded Summit Bridge Capital, a China Ireland Growth Technology Fund aimed at helping European companies scale in China. She currently serves as non-executive director on the board of a number of Irish software companies, and has been a part of man “Top Women” lists, including the Sunday Independent’s 2014 list of “The 50 Most Influential and Powerful Women in Business”.
Dan Crowley
Dan Crowley is a Venture Partner with ARCH’s Europe office in Dublin, Ireland. His interest areas include Computational Sciences, Medical Devices, Bioinformatics, Energy, Nanotechnology, Electronics and Optics. As an investor and board member, Dan has played a direct role in the formation, financing and growth of companies including: Movidius, Clearsight Innovations, FieldAware, Soundwave, Haunted Planet Studios, NVMdurance, SilverCloud Health, BuildingEye, Mutebutton and Nuritas.
John Flynn @jflynnact
John is Managing Director of ACT, a Dublin-based tech VC known for investing on Swrve, Trustev, SkillPages and Storyful among others. His investment focus is on semiconductors, communications and software businesses, and is currently on the boards of Corvil, Eblana Photonics, e-Net, PrismTech, and Lime Microsystems and also works closely with the teams at Barracuda and Skillpages. He was also the chairman of the Irish Venture Capital Association
Paul David Hewson (aka Bono) @U2
Paul Hewson, who is better known as Bono, is not only the lead singer of, arguably, the greatest band of the modern era, but also doubles as the Managing Director and Co-Founder of Elevation Partners. Bono’s private equity firm has an incredible portfolio consisting of the the likes of Facebook, Sonos, Yelp, Marketshare, Bioware/Pandemic Studios, Palm Inc., Move and Forbes
Gareth Keane @garethekeane
Based in the Bay Area, Gareth Keane is an Investment Manager with Qualcomm Ventures, where he led investments in companies like 3D Robotics and Spire. His work has helped define the Qualcomm Ventures investment thesis around UAVs and robotics, and he continues to be heavily involved in Qualcomm Ventures activities in hardware and connected device ecosystems. Besides the aforementioned companies, Gareth also manages Pelican, Lifx, August, Skycatch, 360Fly and Swift Navigation
John Kenny
John is an investor at Delta Partners, where he focuses primarily on ICT opportunities in the UK and Ireland. John also is the board member of StitcherAds (fka Betapond) and Kidstart, and works closely with Blikbook, Eventovate, Fishtree, Kantan MT, MeetingsBooker and Sport Authority. He has previously worked with Great Hill Partners in Boston, and has earned an MBA from Wharton Business School
Brian Long
Brian Long is the Founder and Managing Partner of Atlantic Bridge Ventures, where his active investments and board seats include Movidius Inc, Blue Data Inc, Hedvig Inc, 3D Robotics Inc, Swrve Inc, Boxfish Inc, Lion Semiconductor, GBox Inc, Nod Labs, Navitas Semiconductor, and Highlight Semiconductor. Some of his previous investments and board seats include Maginatics, Ozmo Devices, BridgeCo, Silicon Blue, and Osmetta Inc
Bill McCabe
Bill McCabe is the Founder of Oyster Technology Investments, and is one of Ireland’s most successful technology entrepreneurs. Oyster investment group has taken stakes in the likes of Fieldaware, Muzu.Tv, Complete Telecom and Data Hug
Paul Morrissey @paulmmorrissey
Paul Morrissey is a Vice-President at Battery Ventures, where he focuses on later-stage investments, including growth-equity, buyouts, rollups, PIPES and take-private deals. He previously worked at Goldman Sachs’ investment-banking division focusing on the technology, media and telecom sectors. He is currently involved with Battery portfolio companies including Gainsight, Intacct, Nitro, PrimeRevenue and WebPT
Fergal Mullen @fergalmullen
Fergal Mullen is a co-founder and Partner with Highland Capital Europe and represents Highland Capital Europe on the board of AMCS Group, GetYourGuide.com and Finanzcheck. Until the formation of Highland Capital Europe, Fergal was a General Partner with Highland Capital Partners. He launched the firm’s Europe investment initiative and represents Highland Capital Partners on the boards of GlassesDirect, PhotoBox, Privalia, Spartoo.com and Wooga. He focusses on focused on e-commerce, software and business services companies with a particular emphasis on emerging growth opportunities in Europe
Rory O’Driscoll @rodriscoll
Apart from being an active investor for the past 20 years, Rory O’Driscoll is a founding member and Partner at Scale Venture Partners. With a focus towards early-in-revenue software companies which benefit from the move to SaaS and the wider transition of enterprise computing to the cloud, Rory currently sits on the boards of Axcient, Bill.com, Box, Chef Software, DataSift, DocuSign, Katch, OneLogin, Pantheon, WalkMe and Wrike. Rory O’Driscoll ranks #72 on 2012 Forbes Forbes Midas List.
John O’Farrell @johnofa
John O’Farrell is the third General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, after founders (after founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.John works with portfolio companies on partnering, strategic transactions and global expansion, and led the Andreessen Horowitz’s investments in Facebook, Twitter and Groupon. He has a Bachelor of Electronic Engineering from University College Dublin and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he graduated as an Arjay Miller Scholar.
Ciaran O’Leary @ciaranoleary
Based in Berlin, Ciaran O’Leary is a General Partner at BlueYard Capital, which he co-founded. Prior to this, Ciaran served as a Partner in Earlybird Venture Capital for more than 6 months. BlueYard Capital has raised $120m early stage fund, and will be based in Berlin and invest across Europe.
Sean O’Sullivan
Sean O’Sullivan is the Managing Director and Founder of SOSVentures (SOSV). SOSV help fund about 150 companies per year, at the seed stage. Potfolio companies include the likes of to HAX, IndieBio, Chinaccelerator, Food-X, Interface, and Urban-X, with previous investments including Harmonix (developers of Guitar Hero), Netflix and Leap Motion. Sean graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1985 with a degree in electrical engineering.
Will Prendergast @wilp
Will Prendergast is a founding partner of Frontline Ventures, where he focuses on software and the internet, and has led investments in a wide range of software companies including AMCS, Britebill and epubDirect. He is also a member of the Society of Kauffman Fellows, a network of 200+ venture capital professionals in leading firms around the world, and is also an early investor in Dublin-based P2P currency trading platform CurrencyFair. Will holds a Chemical Engineering Degree from University College Dublin.
Noel Ruane @NoelRuane
Noel Ruane is a Venture Partner with Polaris Partners and leads the firm’s European investment activities. He is based in Dublin, but spends a significant time in both Boston and the Bay Area. Noel is the lead investor and Polaris board member with Boxever and Profitero and served on the board of Logentries, which was acquired by Rapid7. He is also a founding board member of the CoderDojo Foundation.
Conor Stanley @conorstan
Conor Stanley is a co-founder of Tribal.vc, a new early stage venture fund, and co-location hub in Dublin. Stanley’s investments include Irish and US startups such as Boxever, Intercom, Barricade and NewsWhip among others. He was also lead investor in Jolt Online Gaming, which was acquired by GameStop in 2009, and founded digital agency Clearscape in 2000.