Ambisense freshens up funding

Ambisense, an Ireland-based pollution analytics device manufacturer spun out of Dublin City University, has obtained €1.1m ($1.2m) in a round backed by growth equity fund Atlantic Bridge and VC firm Suir Valley Ventures, the Irish Times reported yesterday.
Atlantic Bridge manages the University Bridge Fund, a spinout-focused investment vehicle it formed together with University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin.
Founded in 2014, Ambisense has created a range of machine learning-driven devices and services that help clients determine pollution levels to support environmental risk assessments of major infrastructure developments such as oil facilities and waste disposal plants.
The devices monitor the composition of gases at the targeted site while also aggregating data points such as weather forecasts, satellite imagery and geophysical observations. Ambisense’s offering includes two products built specifically for gas flow monitoring, as well as services tailored to a broader range of environmental risk applications.
Ambisense had already procured $1.1m in a 2017 round led by University Bridge Fund that included enterprise support agency Enterprise Ireland and other unspecified existing investors, according to Irish Tech News.
Barry Downes, the managing partner at Suir Valley Ventures, told the Irish Times he foresaw more opportunities to co-invest with Atlantic Bridge given the latter’s expertise in academic intellectual property.
He said: “For most of the deals we have done in Ireland, we have partnered local VCs and I think Atlantic Bridge is a particularly good match for us as they focus on spinning out companies from universities, which we are very keen on.
“I can see us engaging in more and more opportunities with them and, in fact, we are currently looking at a number of opportunities with them,”