YABA, a leading Amazon brand aggregator in Southern Europe, founded in 2020 by Alejandro Fresneda, David Baratech, Rubén Ferreiro, Sergi de Pablos, and Patxi Archanco, has closed an USD85 million equity and debt financing round. The deal was led by international funds such as US venture capital firm Crossbeam Venture

The BLOC Smart Africa fund (BLOC SA), initiated by the Smart Africa Alliance and managed by Bamboo Capital Partners, is to invest EUR300,000 in Digitech, a Côte d’Ivoire-based SaaS insurance technology start-up.  BLOC SA is leading the seed round, catalysing additional capital from Launch Africa Ventures. Digitech is BLOC SA’s

Tevent, a technology platform for virtual events, has raised USD2 million (GBP1.5 million) throughout its series of seed funding rounds to support product development.  The company secured significant financial backing from leading Silicon Valley investors, including Leslie Stretch CEO at Medallia, Co-Founder of MeshDynamics.io; Rory Cameron EVP at Medallia; Jimmy

Society Brands, an Amazon aggregator built for and by founders, has raised USD240 million in its first institutional capital funding round which was led by by i80 Group, a provider of capital to breakthrough technology companies.  A combination of debt and equity, Society Brands will use the newly raised capital

Olsam Group (Olsam), an ecommerce platform that acquires and scales e-commerce businesses, has hired Steven Wait as Director of eCommerce.  This new appointment comes following Olsam’s recent USD165 million fundraise and the acquisition of US based aggregator FlyWheel Commerce, as the business looks to continue to scale theitsir portfolio of

Global alternative investment manager Oaktree is to acquire a majority stake in 17Capital, a provider of strategic finance for investors in private equity. 17Capital specialises in providing non-dilutive capital to high-quality private equity management companies, funds and institutional investors that are seeking to finance value creation and portfolio management initiatives.

Mission Hill Hospitality, a KSL Capital Partners portfolio company focused on transforming select service and extended stay hotel investing, has acquired the Killington Mountain Lodge, Tapestry Collection by Hilton,l ocated in central Vermont’s Green Mountains.  Terms of the deal are undisclosed.  This is the 15th property added to the Mission

Foresight Group (Foresight), a listed private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has made a GBP2.5 million growth capital investment in Kognitiv Spark (KS) which is commercialising software that provides 3D data to support field service workers in remote locations.  The investment is funded by the Foresight Williams Technology Fund, a

Cynergy Bank has provided a loan amount of GBP2.5m to Faith in Nature, a natural beauty products brand based in Manchester. The loan will enable the company to develop new manufacturing and business premises, having outgrown its existing location. The development of the new site provides space for future sales

International private equity firm Cinven has signed an agreement with Bayer AG (ETR: BAYN) to acquire its Environmental Science Professional business for a total enterprise value of USD2.6 billion (~EUR2.4 billion). Bayer Environmental Science Professional (BESP) is a leading global provider of products and services to create healthier environments, to