TORONTO - Celtic House Venture Partners has been selected as a qualified investor by the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund (OETF). OETF is a $250 million fund established by the Province of Ontario in 2009 to co-invest alongside qualified investors in innovative, high-growth, private Ontario companies. The fund is managed by the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation (OCGC), an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. Details on OETF can be found on the OCGC website at www.ontario.ca/ocgc.

"Ontario continues to be a rich source of emerging technology and repeat entrepreneurs," said Celtic House Partner David Adderley. "However, one of the challenges is putting together a syndicate of investors with the deep financial reserves necessary to develop a company that can compete globally. By co-investing with established venture capital funds, the OETF will increase the amount of capital available to start-up companies and help foster a more vibrant venture capital environment in the province."

Over the past 9 years, Celtic House has built clusters of companies focused on digital multimedia, data centre technology, wireless communications, and financial services software. Most recently, in October, Celtic House led a $10 million Series "A" financing round of Peraso Technologies, a fabless semiconductor company focused on the development of millimeter wave (mm-wave) transceivers, and a $10 million Series "B" growth capital financing round of Fresco Microchip, a leading supplier of television demodulator and RF processor components. Peraso and Fresco are headquartered in Toronto, with engineering and development presence in both Toronto and Ottawa.

"Our long-term investment strategy has been to leverage Canada's core competencies - in terms of both technology and people - to develop platform technology companies," said Celtic House Partner Brian Antonen. "In addition, collaboration among our portfolio companies reduces market resistance and improves time-to-revenue, lowering the risk for our investment projects in our target markets. Celtic House looks forward to opportunities to co-invest alongside OETF in building Ontario's next generation of world-class technology companies."