Author: shardadmin

Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund, launched in February 2017, has, together with private investors, invested a combined total of €1,000,000 in ProVision Vehicle Cameras, a leading Internet of Things (‘IoT’) company focused on providing advanced fleet and driver management systems. This is Suir’s fourth investment and follows closely on the heels of investments in an educational VR business, Immersive VR Education, leading IoT cloud platform, Wia, and reality games developer, WarDucks.

ProVision is a world leader in the field of quality video recording capabilities known as CameraMatics. This technology provides remotely accessible IoT solutions to manage and reduce fleet risk, enhance driver safety, increase fleet efficiencies and help operators comply with growing governance and compliance regulations. The technology combines highest quality vehicle camera and tracking technology linked to advanced cloud software, and ProVision’s most advanced products can issue warnings such as flagging driver fatigue, mobile phone use, collision dangers, lane departure and driver distractions, ultimately improving road safety and helping companies with compliance requirements.

ProVision has already installed its systems into hundreds of fleets across the UK and Ireland, comprising thousands of vehicles, and plans to accelerate the roll-out through its partnerships with large fleet operators, leading insurance providers, motor manufacturers, and fleet leasing companies; the investment will enable ProVision to further implement its strategic expansion plans.

As part of the investment, Gareth Burchell, Head of Stockbroking at Shard Capital Stockbrokers, is joining the board of ProVision, bringing with him more than 15 years of experience in the City.

Suir Valley Ventures Managing Partner, Barry Downes, said, “This seed funding will enable ProVision, with its proven technology, to modernise an even greater number of fleets, resulting in increased road safety, compliance with regulations and shielding them from fraudulent claims against drivers. The IoT is an industry with vast potential and ProVision’s unique cloud based software solution provides fleet managers with the most comprehensive end-to-end solution available in the market. It is a privilege to support the ProVision team and we look forward to helping them to take their business to the next level.”

Mervyn O’Callaghan, Managing Director of ProVision, said, “IoT is growing at the speed of light; its total market size is expected to grow to $3.7 billion by 2020 up from $900 million in 2015. ProVision, with its established client base and proven technology, is perfectly placed to capitalise on this flourishing industry. We are delighted with the support that we have received from Suir Valley and our private investors and look forward to gaining an even stronger foothold in the sector.”

ENDS

WarDucks, a leading virtual reality (‘VR’) game developer, has secured a seed investment round of €1.3 million led by Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund (‘Suir Valley’), with additional funds coming from Enterprise Ireland and private investors. The virtual reality market is expected to grow from GBP £1.4 billion in 2016 to GBP £26.4 billion by 2022, and Suir Valley is eager to increase its exposure to this burgeoning industry, with this injection of capital into WarDucks representing its most recent investment into the virtual reality market.

WarDucks, a studio based in Dublin, designs and develops high quality games and experiences for gamers to play on virtual reality devices. It flagship brand is Sneaky Bears, which, on the Samsung mobile Gear VR platform reached number 24 on the Top Selling Gear VR Charts, and its sequel, Sneaky Bears Rollercoaster reached a number 2 ranking. WarDucks has now launched an expanded and completely new version of Sneaky Bears, a full-length VR game, on the PlayStation VR and Oculus Rift platforms. PlayStation has so far dominated the consumer Console VR market in 2017, with an estimated 1.8 million units sold to date. Sneaky Bears is also due to launch on the HTC Vive platform in the coming weeks.

Beginning her career at Facebook, WarDucks Founder and CEO, Nikki Lannen, established WarDucks with the intention of developing fun and engaging virtual reality games and has so far launched a hidden object game, Global Agents (which has had over half a million downloads), together with its Sneaky Bears suite of games.

Commenting on the recent investment by Suir Valley, Nikki Lannen said: “Virtual reality will increasingly become part of the fabric of our everyday lives and gaming is pioneering this as we speak. Our Sneaky Bears brand has already performed extremely well on mobile VR platforms, however our move now to more sophisticated hardware, including PlayStation, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive marks an important step for WarDucks. I am delighted that Suir Valley recognises our potential in the expanding virtual reality space and is supporting our next phase of growth through this investment, together with Enterprise Ireland and other private investors.”

Barry Downes, Managing Partner – Suir Valley Ventures, said, “We are delighted to announce that we are leading the investment round in WarDucks. Nikki and her team have already had major success, launching a number of hit VR games on mobile, and we are thrilled to help the company bring its unique Sneaky Bears IP to console and PC platforms. For the team at Suir Valley, VR is an area of enormous opportunity and potential, and we remain keen to increase our exposure to this market and become a leading investor in the expanding industry. We see Dublin based WarDucks as a great example of the type of games studio that is going to be hugely successful in the VR industry and are looking forward to working with Nikki and her team to support them grow the company rapidly and launch unique products worldwide.”

Niall McEvoy, Manager, HPSU ICT Dept, Enterprise Ireland said: “WarDucks is an innovative Irish start up making strong technical and commercial progress in the rapidly growing Virtual Reality space. The company is combining innovation with global ambition and Enterprise Ireland looks forward to continuing to work with them as they expand and scale in international markets”.

Suir Valley Ventures was launched in partnership with Shard Capital Partners LLP in February 2017. As part of the agreement, Toby Raincock, CEO of Shard Capital, is joining the Board to support WarDucks.

* ENDS *

 

Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund, which was launched in partnership with Shard Capital Partners LLP in February 2017, is pleased to announce it has invested €750,000 into Wia, one of the leading Internet of Things (‘IoT’) cloud platforms. In addition to Suir’s investment, Enterprise Ireland will be investing further funds into Wia, which is looking to establish its cloud platform as the enabling technology that powers the rapidly growing IoT market.

Wia’s ground-breaking IoT cloud platform enables developers to turn any type of sensing device into a secure, smart and useful application in a matter of minutes, generating considerable time and cost savings for teams who would have previously had to spend many months on 100,000s of lines of code to try to build out their own cloud infrastructure. Wia provides a vertically integrated offering incorporating management, data capture and storage, analysis, control, as well as the seamless integration of additional services and devices. In line with its strategy to become a one-stop provider of IoT infrastructure, later this year Wia plans to launch its latest product which will incorporate the world’s first off the shelf IoT billing system.

Launched in 2015, Wia’s award-winning cloud platform is today used by developers in over 85 countries. In addition, Wia has partnerships in place with leading technology companies including Sigfox, PubNub and Twilio, and plans to expand to the US later in the year. Today’s seed investment will be used to fund Wia’s continued global expansion and further investment into R&D of its technology platform.

In recognition of its pioneering work, in 2016 Wia was selected to join NDRC’s LaunchPad programme, winning their investor day. NDRC is an Irish Government funded agency which was established to invest in digital companies and start up teams with the potential to grow internationally. NDRC currently ranks as no.2 University Business Accelerator in the World and no. 1 University Business Accelerator in Europe by the UBI Global Index.

Founder & CEO Conall Laverty, 28, has previously developed and architected software solutions with Big Motive, Channel 4, BBC, Net-a-Porter, Cambridge Silicon Radio and Deezer. He attained a First Class Honours from Queen’s University in Computer Games Development. Mr Laverty has built a team of high calibre and expert professionals at Wia. They will be joined by Suir Valley’s Brian Kinane who has been appointed to Wia’s Board of Directors.

Today’s investment in Wia is Suir’s second since its launch. In March 2017, Suir, together with Kernel through the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Venture Funds and Enterprise Ireland, invested a combined total of €1 million in Immersive VR Education Limited, a developer of virtual reality (‘VR’) software and immersive experiences with a specific focus on education.

Barry Downes, Managing Partner – Suir Valley Ventures, said, “We are delighted to announce that we are leading the seed venture capital round for Wia. The Internet of Things (IoT) is an important focus area for the Fund and an area of tremendous growth and productivity for enterprises and the economy. Conall has led a superb team to develop a ground-breaking IoT platform that is the easiest and fasted way to link sensors and devices to develop IoT applications. Wia’s end-to-end platform provides full device and application management, security, data capture and storage, analysis, control, as well as the seamless integration of enterprise systems. We are looking forward to working with Conall and his team to help them rapidly expand the Wia business with developers and enterprises internationally.”

Conall Laverty, Founder & CEO of Wia, said, “We are thrilled to bring the experience and knowledge from Suir Valley Ventures as partners with us on a milestone in Wia’s journey. The Internet of Things, through which devices communicate with each other is playing an ever-increasing role in both corporate and domestic life around the world, and we believe our platform will take it to the next level”.

Niall McEvoy, Manager, HPSU ICT Dept., Enterprise Ireland said, “Wia is an innovative Irish start up that has made strong technical and commercial progress, developing world leading platform technology in the rapidly growing IoT space. The company is combining innovation with global ambition and Enterprise Ireland looks forward to continuing to work with them as they expand and scale in international markets”.

Speaking about Wia, CEO of NDRC Ben Hurley, said, “Wia offers a compelling product which enables connectivity and information-sharing between devices and sensors. They have a really strong team in place with deep technology expertise and clear ambition. From NDRC’s perspective the company’s potential and capacity for growth was clear when we invested in them initially in 2016 through our investment and acceleration programme, and then with further follow on funding this year. This announcement today will enable Wia to achieve continued employment growth here in Ireland and grow their business into new international markets in the future.”

ENDS

Suir Valley Ventures, the entrepreneur-led venture capital fund, which was launched in partnership with Shard Capital Partners LLP in February 2017, has made its first investment in Immersive VR Education Ltd. (‘IVRE’), a developer of virtual reality (‘VR’) software and immersive experiences with a specific focus on education. Suir, together with Kernel through the Bank of Ireland Kernel Capital Venture Funds and Enterprise Ireland, have invested a combined total of €1 million in IVRE.

A spin-out from WIT’s research-based Telecoms Software and Systems Group (‘TSSG’), IVRE’s platform provides virtual reality content that can be used in schools, colleges, universities, research centres and corporate training to teach any subject in a virtual environment, allowing students to fully immerse themselves in the experience and making hard to visualise concepts easy to understand.

IVRE has won several international awards for its work, including awards for both its Engage Platform and Apollo 11 VR, which uses archive footage and audio from NASA to relive the historical moon landing of 1969. Apollo 11 VR launched in April 2016, with initial sales of 50,000+ copies on the Oculus and Steam stores.

The founding husband and wife team, David and Sandra Whelan, have attracted high calibre VR talent from around the world. This investment will enable IVRE to accelerate its growth plans; it is currently collaborating with Oxford University and the Royal College of Surgeons to develop VR-based training programmes for medical professionals.

Suir Valley Ventures Managing Partner, Barry Downes, said, “As a leader in the field of VR experiences and education, we are delighted to invest in and support the growth and scaling up of IVRE. Its Apollo 11 VR experience is a multi-awarding winning interactive journey to the moon and back that demonstrates clearly the power of VR to educate and inspire; we expect no less of Titanic VR, which launches later in 2017. In addition, IVRE’s Engage VR is the leading virtual reality education platform in the market.

“We believe that AR/VR will play an increasingly key role in society and that its growth potential over the next five years is massive; indeed it is expected to be a $150 billion market by 2020. With this in mind, we continue to explore other exciting investment opportunities in this space.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

Suir Valley Ventures: shardcapital.com or suirvalleyventures.com

Suir Valley Ventures is an entrepreneur led Venture Capital Fund that invests in early stage software companies. It specialises in investing in Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR), Financial Technology (FinTech), and the Internet of Things (IoT) Sectors. Suir Valley Ventures works in partnership with Shard Capital, a London based independent financial services company offering a full range of broking, asset management and corporate capital services.

IVRE: immersivevreducation.com

Immersive VR Education Ltd is a virtual reality software company dedicated to creating quality educational experiences for all students. Since it opened its doors in October 2014, IVRE has released a range of educational experiences and won seven International awards for its educational software. Virtual reality is a new industry, and the benefits both inside and outside the classroom are only now being discovered. The company’s vision for the future is to see virtual reality become a staple tool for education, and they strive to produce quality experiences that demonstrate this.

Contacts:

Barry Downes
Suir Valley Ventures
barry.downes@shardcapital.com

Simon Hughes
Shard Capital
simon.hughes@shardcapital.com

Isabel de Salis
St Brides Partners
020 7236 1177 isabel@stbridespartners.co.uk