In June 2012, Silicon Valley Bank announced plans to commit $100m over five years to support Ireland’s innovation sector in collaboration with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund’s predecessor, the National Pensions Reserve Fund. So far, 15 Irish companies have benefitted from the commitment, including Accuris, Boxever, Clavis Insight, Movidius and Profitero.

Silicon Valley Bank expects to deploy an additional $100 million of new lending commitments to fast-growing Irish technology and life science businesses over the next five years, from its operations in the US and UK, subject to its standard lending criteria.

As part of their collaborative relationship, Silicon Valley Bank lends to Irish technology companies and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund helps it to identify potential lending clients in these niche sectors and also invests in funds managed by SVB Capital.

Silicon Valley Bank’s parent company, SVB Financial Group, has established a presence in Ireland with the appointment of Clive Lennox, who has moved from London to Dublin as Director of Irish Business Development.

Commenting on the initiative, Phil Cox, President of EMEA and Head of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK Branch, today said: “We’re pleased to have met so many fantastic entrepreneurs in Ireland over the last four years, and are looking forward to expanding our relationships with Irish innovators with this new financial commitment. We’d like to thank the Irish government and particularly the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund for their support, collaboration and proactive approach to building the innovation economy locally.”

Eugene O’Callaghan, Director of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, said: “Ireland’s emerging and high-growth technology and life sciences companies have enormous potential but lending to them requires a real understanding of their life cycle, business model and financing requirements. Silicon Valley Bank has shown it can apply its specialist lending expertise and relationships to a critical gap in the Irish market and we look forward to seeing more Irish companies benefit from their dedication to the Irish market over the next five years.”

Garry Maroney, CEO, Clavis Insight: “Silicon Valley Bank understands the needs of companies like Clavis Insight. Working with them enabled us to access financing to rapidly build global capacity and maintain our market leadership positon, as we further develop our next generation eCommerce-channel analytics solutions for consumer products manufacturers.”

Jimmy Martin, CEO of AMCS Group: “Ireland has so much potential to continue to mature as a powerhouse of innovation, but what every business needs to in order to grow is access to capital. This new pledge to our nation means that more businesses can benefit from Silicon Valley Bank’s support, as we at AMCS have done.”

Dave O’Flanagan, CEO of Boxever: “This year we accessed debt funding from Silicon Valley Bank which will help enable Boxever to create up to 100 high-value technical roles in Ireland. The team at SVB quickly understood our business model and thought creatively about what we were seeking to achieve with our series B round - it’s a great working relationship.”