Crescent Capital - Venture Capitalists in Belfast Northern Ireland

Until the global banking crisis and the on-set of recession in 2008, the Northern Ireland economy grew strongly with manufacturing output and employment growth running at higher levels than the UK average.

• In the period 2008-2011, the Northern Ireland economy has been affected by three major trends:

• The global macro-economic slowdown;
• The bursting of the property bubble and related banking issues;and
• The onset of a reduction in public sector expenditure driven from the deficit reducing measures of the UK exchequer.

Economically Northern Ireland has fared much better in the downturn than its neighbour, the Republic of Ireland. It is recognised that the border UK economy is emerging from the recession and that reductions in public sector spending need to be applied in such a manner so as to avoid the risk of a double dip recession. The drop in the value of Sterling has improved the competitive advantage of exporting technology companies (such as those targeted by Crescent) with the consequence that those that have achieved market entry abroad are benefiting significantly.

The Northern Ireland economy has historically been over reliant upon the public sector. The onset of cuts in the public sector budget for Northern Ireland has heightened the awareness of this issue. Contemporary strategies for the economy locally are based upon this imbalance being addressed through a combination of Foreign Direct Investment and the growth in the number and scale of indigenous private sector enterprises. The availability of quality venture capital finance is an important component within the ecosystem of measures being put in place to deliver on this objective.

Notwithstanding the more recent issues in the Northern Ireland economy the following features remain:

• A young and well educated workforce with a high percentage going on to further education;
• Two quality universities producing significant numbers of skilled granduates annually;
• An export driven industrial base that is progressively transitioning towards knowledge based sectors;
• An extremely risk adverse banking sector which opens the door to Crescent for equity as a source of finance for growth businesses and change in ownership scenarios;
• Competitive salary and facilities costs; and
• A modern and well developed infrastructure.