REYKJAVIK - ICELANDIC singer Bjork is seeking investors in a venture-capital fund she helped start to finance new businesses and boost the struggling economy in her home country.

Audur Capital, a Reykjavik-based investment company founded and managed by women, will run the fund, which is named Bjork after the 43-year-old singer. It was started with an initial investment of 100 million Icelandic kronur (S$17.9 million) and will be closed to new investors by March next year, according to Ms Halla Tomasdottir, Audur's executive chairman.

The new venture, which was reported last week by the New York Times DealBook, aims to boost Iceland's economy after a five-year economic boom ended this year with the collapse of the United States subprime mortgage market and the resulting failure of the local banking system.

Audur is hoping to raise as much as 1.5 billion kronur by the end of March and invest in environmentally friendly businesses and technologies.

'We are attracting a lot of interest from Iceland and abroad as increasingly more people are looking for investments whose returns are not only financial,' Ms Tomasdottir said in an interview.

The International Monetary Fund predicts Iceland's economy will shrink 9.6 percent next year.

Bloomberg