ACT Venture Capital, the Irish early-stage private equity firm, has become Europe's most successful technology sector fundraiser in 12 months by securing €170m ($185m) for its third fund.

The technology sector has been hard hit since 2000 and Niall Caroll, managing director of ACT Ventures, said: "We expected fundraising to be hard going and it was. It took us 15 months to raise the fund, which is a longish time."