Clarendon Fund Managers | About us
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About us

We help businesses grow
WHO
WE
ARE

Clarendon Fund Managers Limited is a venture capital fund manager based in Belfast, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We manage £94m of regional VC Funds in Northern Ireland including the £49.8m Co-Investment Fund. We have invested in over 80 companies since we began investing in 2001.

OUR
GROWTH
FUNDS

The Investment Fund for Northern Ireland’s £33m equity program, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers, is part of the £70m Investment Fund for Northern Ireland, one of a series of Nations and Regions Investment Funds launched by the British Business Bank which will deliver £1.6 billion of new funding to smaller businesses across the UK.

The Investment Fund for Northern Ireland equity program seeks to invest in ambitious teams leading high-growth companies across the start-up, early stage, growth, and expansion phases of a company’s development.

Initial investments range in size from £250k to £3m.

The Fund can provide access to the capital required to accelerate a company’s growth.  It can help to boost productivity, innovation and employment while supporting a wide range of business finance needs:

  • Purchasing new machinery
  • Capital expenditure
  • Investing in new products
  • Hiring new team members
  • Filling gaps in working capital

The Fund aims to increase the supply and diversity of early-stage finance for Northern Irish businesses, investing in ambitious and growth focused companies located across the whole of Northern Ireland.

As part of the Access to Finance Strategy, Invest Northern Ireland has appointed Clarendon Fund Managers (‘CFM’) to manage Co-Fund NI. The aim of the Fund is to ensure that businesses with growth aspirations can access equity finance to reach their potential.

The Co-Fund NI programme makes available £49.8 million to invest alongside private investors such as business angels or business angel syndicates (hereafter referred to as ‘private investors’ or ‘syndicates’) into eligible SME’s based in Northern Ireland. When matched 35% with 65% private investors on a deal-by-deal basis this will give an overall ‘fund’ size of £142.3 million.

This initiative is provided by Invest Northern Ireland and part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund under the Invest for Growth and Jobs Programme 2014-2020.


Viridian Growth Fund, L.P. specializes in equity and debt investments. The fund prefers to invest in information technology, manufacturing, and tradable services sectors. It seeks to invest in small and medium enterprises based in Northern Ireland. The fund typically invests between £50,000  and £250,000  and can provide follow on finance of up to £350,000  in later rounds. It prefers to take a board seat in its portfolio companies. The fund will acquire a minority shareholding in the business in return for a cash investment. It seeks to exit its investments between five and seven years. Viridian Growth Fund is no longer making new investments.

The £3m Nitech Growth Fund is a venture capital fund established by Invest NI to finance the commercialisation of technology within start-ups or existing businesses.

The fund is aimed at the creation and expansion of research-led, market-orientated businesses.

The key objective of the Nitech fund is to encourage and support the R&D activities of eligible companies and enable them to develop products or services which meet identifiable market needs.

If you are a high-growth potential businesses you will be able to access funding for projects that entail significant risks and which may not be able to attract alternative forms of finance.

Nitech provides you with a combination of financial assistance and specialist advice.

Staged investments ranging between £20,000 and £200,000, with a maximum total investment of £250,000 being provided to one business are available.

Venture capital investment is not just a source of money. The fund will also enable you to promote expansion and development across a range of areas within your business, including incremental profitability increases, professional expertise, employee numbers and sales.

Investment will be made alongside other sources of funding and will complement existing public sector grants and other venture capital funds active in providing early-stage funding.

The resources and expertise of a Venture Capital Manager will be available to not only provide financial assistance without the need of regular repayments by your business, but to also provide a number of other tangible benefits.

For example, the participation of the Venture Capital Manager will make a significant impact to the development plans of your business through active involvement in decision making.
NI Tech Fund is no longer making new investments.


We are happy to meet up with individuals and companies to discuss our investment ethos and approach, in advance of receiving a full business plan, however it is always helpful to at least have a short executive summary for background in advance of any meeting.