The concept of emerging markets is so inextricably linked to Asia (and sometimes Eastern Europe) that it's sometimes easy to miss markets emerging on our very doorsteps. Ireland may just be one of these. Its economy has been booming for a decade but in terms of venture capital activity, it has been a pretty subdued environment. This is natural - the VC industry did not come about overnight in Silicon Valley, Cambridge or anywhere else. It takes time for a body of expertise and analysis to build up and even longer for investors to be convinced that it is worthy of their consideration.

However, Ireland appears to have reached, or even passed, a tipping point. Ernst & Young's quarterly venture capital report, carried out in conjunction with Dow Jones VentureOne, shows a progressive increase in the number and value of deals being done. The third quarter showed a healthy E29.7m of deals in the third quarter. Even better, Library House's database, VenturePedia, shows that so far in the fourth quarter there have been E180.9m worth of deals. Even stripping out the E126m in a single deal for Setanta, this is a big increase on the previous quarter and an even larger increase on earlier in the year.

The Irish Venture Capital Association bullishly predicts that E3bn will be available to Irish firms over the next five to seven years, half coming from locally raised funds. If that's really the case, we should all be rushing to the Emerald Isle and setting up innovative companies.