Celtic House Venture Partners, an early-stage technology venture capital firm, announced today that it has closed its third fund with $280 million of commitments from Canadian, European and U.S. investors. The Ottawa-based firm began fund raising for its third fund in July 2004, originally targeting US$200 million.

Celtics says the new fund will invest in early-stage technology companies originating primarily in Canada and the U.K. and will focus on five industry sectors: semiconductors, systems, MEMS, optics and software. Celtic House expects to invest in twenty to twenty-five portfolio companies over the next five years, targeting investments of U.S.$2 to U.S.$5 million per financing round.


“We are pleased that we were significantly oversubscribed and that close to half the fund comes from foreign investors,” said Andrew Waitman, managing partner of Celtic House. “We recognize our responsibility in achieving outstanding returns to ensure our investors continue to invest in the Canadian venture market.”

“One of our main objectives when raising this fund was to broaden our geographical base of investors to include top-tier international investors from the United States, Europe and Canada,” said Waitman. “We achieved this goal and are proud of our expanded group of investors.” All the institutional investors in Fund II returned in Fund III.

“Celtic House is one of the leading venture capital firms with a unique geographical focus on Canada and the United Kingdom,” said David York, partner of the San Francisco-based Paul Capital Partners, a returning investor from Fund II. “The firm has a collaborative investment style that appeals to entrepreneurs and achieves impressive portfolio returns.”

During the past year and a half, Celtic House has successfully sold two of its seed investments. Synad Technologies, a fabless semiconductor start-up based in Reading, U.K., was acquired by STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) for U.S.$55 million in December 2003. Three months later, 13-month old OctigaBay Systems, a Vancouver-based developer of innovative high performance computing (HPC) systems, was acquired by Cray Inc. of Seattle, WA (NASDAQ NM: CRAY) for U.S.$115 million.