It has been three years of hard work, but Alan Merriman and his team at Elkstone expect to be finally able to launch a €75 million new fund targeting early-stage Irish companies in February. For Merriman, the executive chairman of Elkstone, it was at times a hard-fought battle. Getting approval to launch the new fund required the assistance of the Department of Finance, which changed the legislation governing the Employment Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS) to allow investors in its new fund to avail of tax reliefs. “It has been quite a journey,” Merriman admits. “We first came up with the idea…