Evolution Equity Partners has held the final closing of a new fund with total capital commitments of USD125 million to make investments in cybersecurity and next generation enterprise software and services in North America, Europe and Israel.
The fund exceeded its target and is backed by leading institutional investors, corporates, family offices and technology entrepreneurs from the United States and Europe including Cisco Investments, The European Investment Fund (EIF), Witelo Fund (PZU Insurance Group), Alpha Associates among others.
The Evolution Technology Fund will make investments in the range of USD5 million to USD25 million in early and growth stage companies in cybersecurity and in companies utilizing machine learning, big data, SaaS, mobile and the convergence of consumer and enterprise software to build market leading platforms. Evolution sees tremendous opportunity in Europe, the United States and Israel alike to partner and invest in next generation cybersecurity and enterprise software companies and help position them for international growth.
Evolution Equity Partners was founded by investor and technology entrepreneurs Richard Seewald and Dennis Smith, who manage and lead the firm, and are joined by partners Karel Obluk (former CTO, AVG Technologies), JR Smith (former CEO, AVG Technologies), and a specialist team of professionals. The team members have been founders, operating executives and investors in leading software companies around the world and are committed to a mission of helping exceptional entrepreneurs develop market leading companies. Current and past portfolio companies include category leaders: AVG Technologies, OpenDNS, Carbon Black, Cognitive Security, Security Scorecard, Onapsis, Fortscale, LogPoint, DFLabs, Eperi and Panaseer among others.
“Evolution’s sector focus, along with the partners’ deep operating, technical and product development expertise allows us to take a concentrated approach in identifying leading entrepreneurial companies poised for growth,” says managing partner Richard Seewald. “We see tremendous opportunity in Europe, North America and Israel alike where management teams of rapidly growing software companies seek investors that can help with international expansion. Evolution has considerable experience in developing and exploiting new markets internationally and has become a preferred partner for cybersecurity and enterprise software entrepreneurs. The closing of the Evolution Technology Fund demonstrates the commitment of our global investors to our strategy and approach.”
“We are in the early innings of a secular trend in the cybersecurity space that involves increased spend by large enterprises, smaller businesses and consumers alike, an expanding threat landscape, market consolidation and demand for next generation products and services that makes this a very compelling segment for investment,” says managing partner Dennis Smith. “Likewise the enterprise software and services segment is experiencing unprecedented disruptive forces – cloud, mobile, hyper connectivity – that position next generation companies well while creating attractive investment opportunity.”
