Investing | Business Post

Venture capital firm Venrex backs Dublin mushroom coffee company OYL

The value of the ‘functional mushrooms’ market is forecast to grow to more than €50 billion by 2030

Immigrant Investor Programme

‘Cash for visa’ scheme raised €1.25 billion but was fraught with controversy

Immigrant Investor Programme had been under review for years due to concerns over volume of Chinese applicants and possible fraud, before government moved to close it down

Morning Headlines

IDA investment fears over infrastructure deficit; New geothermal energy group set up

The stories you need to read this morning in business, politics and current affairs

Teeling-backed mining firm posts £6.4m accumulated losses

Chairman says mineral exploration has ‘gone out of fashion’ as Botswana Diamonds reports £716,000 annual loss

CitySwift plans to expand its successful New York City pilot transport scheme

Existing backers, including the family of Ryanair founder Tony Ryan, provide €5 million in further funds for Galway-headquartered transport tech company

Pensions Authority to review fund rules after British debacle

The regulator says the recent panic in Britain has left Irish pension funds ‘unscathed’, but he will nonetheless ‘be looking at what lessons could be learned’

‘I’m not just another fan’: The Kerryman who tells Premier League stars how to manage their money

Patrick Foley, founder of Sonar Financial Services, has helped some of football’s most highly paid players, including Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Héctor Bellerín. He’s willing to have the hard conversations when necessary

Is the party over? Irish tech braces for a shock as the easy money dries up

For years, cash flowed freely and plentifully through the veins of this country’s tech industry, but with a potential global recession looming on the horizon, venture capitalists are ordering companies to tighten their belts and slash their costs. Can the sector avoid a full-blown crash?

Michael Burry, stock market sage extraordinaire

Hollywood blockbuster The Big Short detailed how the trading wizard Michael Burry predicted the great crash of 2008. Now he is prophesying an even greater tumble for the markets – and a possible revolution

Irish co-founded Synova closes new €1 billion fund

Private equity firm with more than £1.7 billion in assets under management intends to back more Irish companies with Synova V fund

Investors in immigrant visa scheme sue Huawen founder in Chinese court

One of Ireland’s biggest cash-for-visa brokers is now looking for backers for a five-star hotel with a golf course and luxury villas and apartments on Croatia’s Adriatic coast

Superbubble: Is the ‘mother of all crashes’ on the horizon?

Feeding frenzies on property, tech and other stock reached delirious heights during the pandemic. But veteran investors have been warning for some time now that several bubbles are about to burst simultaneously, and that we could be heading into a historic period of uncertainty in the markets

Meet Ray Dalio, the corporate contrarian who’s ‘shorting Europe’

The founder of Bridgewater is the archetypal hedge fund creator: white, well-educated and idiosyncratic. Right now, the firm is shorting on some of Europe’s biggest companies, among them Adidas and Siemens, Bayer, BNP Paribas and Sanofi. But why?

Conversational AI company Webio raises $4m

Webio assists clients in communicating with customers on sensitive subjects such as credit, collections and payments

The Big Picture

Vincent Boland: ESG movement imploding after falling into the trap of believing its own publicity

The probe into German asset manager DWS has revealed a fatal flaw in the much-lauded concept of ethical investment: no one agrees on what it actually means

Canadian investor takes 3.5% stake in Hostelworld

A subsidiary owned by Prem Watsa has bought just over four million shares in the Irish hostel-booking company, at a cost of about £4m

Fintech Circit raises €6.5m as it plans to double headcount

Dublin-headquartered company’s SaaS platform automates workflows for auditors, corporates and financial institutions

Ian Guider: Troubled times take the shine off crypto

Inflation, pandemic and war should be creating the ideal conditions for bitcoin and its ilk to thrive. Instead they’re behaving like any other risk assets

New syndicate aiming to back female entrepreneurs

The new syndicate, AwakenAngels, also intends to encourage more women to become investors

Vincent Boland: Fall of Archegos could change how the stock market is played

The collapse of the hedge fund, which built a $36 billion house of cards, may be one catalyst among many for the most sweeping reforms of the stock market in decades