The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund has named its price for backing the flotation of venture capital firm Draper Esprit on the junior Dublin and London markets this week.

The managing director of Draper Esprit's Irish business, Brian Caulfield (inset), told Cantillon the firm has committed to "investing a material amount in the Irish market over the next few years" though he declined to get into figures.

ISIF, a successor to the National Pensions Reserve Fund, will be the firm’s main shareholder, with an almost 27 per cent stake, after the initial public offering.

Irish investments, including Movidius, Datahug and Getbulb, will make up about 20 per cent of the portfolio after the IPO tomorrow, when Draper Esprit starts life as a public company with a market capitalisation of €157 million.

With Draper Esprit having locked in €102 million of new investment, the IPO "is going to allow us support good companies for longer, rather than being diluted as [funding] rounds take place," according to Caulfield who is also a non-executive director at The Irish Times.

He will have a 3.3 per cent stake in the company on its admission to the Enterprise Securities Market in Dublin.

Overall, management will have a 16 per cent stake, a “carry plan” – a profit-sharing agreement typical of the VC industry – and a share options plan which is “small” by industry standards, he said.

Having looked at floating earlier this year only to have been caught out by volatile markets, the firm hasn’t exactly picked the best time to proceed, with the Dublin and London markets having been sold off sharply in recent days amid fears over Brexit.

But the new money’s in the bag and Draper Esprit has a pipeline of deals it is looking to apply the cash to. “I’d be surprised if we didn’t have something closed by the end of the third quarter.”