Deals
KKR is to acquire Roompot Group, a provider of holiday parks in Western Europe, from European private equity firm PAI Partners. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions, having already received positive works council advice. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
Founded in 1965 in the region of Zeeland (the Netherlands), Roompot has progressively developed to become a leading holiday parks operator in Europe. The business directly owns and operates 33 parks in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, and works exclusively with more than 100 third-party park operators to support their booking and distribution efforts and provide development, design and
Livingbridge, one of the UK’s leading mid-market private equity investors, has invested in Irish insurance and financial services group Chill Insurance (Chill).Headquartered in Dublin where it employs almost 250 staff, Chill was founded in 2006 by brothers Padraig and Seamus Lynch and has subsequently grown into one of the largest independent personal lines insurance broker in Ireland with over 200,000 policyholders, representing a 6 per cent market share.
Chill has successfully disrupted the Irish personal lines insurance market through its strong brand and multi-channel distribution capabilities, offering high-quality service, whole of market choice through a panel of 14 major
SLAMcore, a UK company developing spatial AI algorithms for robots and drones, has secured USD5 million in a funding round led by Octopus Ventures and MMC Ventures, with participation from Amadeus Capital Partners and Toyota AI Ventures. The funding will allow SLAMcore to meet the increasing demand of the robotics market, which has seen demand skyrocket due to Covid-19. This has occurred particularly in drone, robots and AR/VR usage, as effective robotics solutions that can support the ‘new normal’ of a post-Covid-19 crisis world are accelerating.
SLAMcore has seen a spike in demand from companies looking to apply robotics with enquiries
Akia, a Menlo Park-based start-up focused on transforming the way hotels engage with their guests, has secured a new round of funding from GSR Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with more than USD3 billion under management. Akia will utilise the capital to accelerate and expand implementation of its AI-enabled SaaS platform, which allows hotels to provide guests with contactless options such as pre-arrival check-in and shifting in-person guest communications to text messaging. Akia’s customers include brands such as Hyatt, Marriott, Best Western, NoMad, The Ritz-Carlton Club & Residences, and many luxury boutiques.
“Akia’s messaging platform helps hotels provide superior
Trinity Consultants (Trinity), a portfolio company of Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP), has acquired Vision Environment Australia Pty Ltd (Vision Environment). Vision Environment, based in Queensland, Australia, is a leading provider of water quality monitoring services to clients involved in commercial dredging and other industrial activities that impact the marine environment.
Trinity is a leading provider of regulatory-driven environmental, health & safety and engineering consulting services. Trinity specialises in highly technical, compliance-driven services with a core presence in air quality and an expanding presence in adjacencies such as commissioning, qualification and validation, process safety management, toxicology and water quality. Trinity operates
Investcorp’s portfolio company Calligo Limited (Calligo), an end-to-end managed data services provider, has acquired Itomic Voice & Data Ltd (Itomic). Itomic is a Cork- and Dublin-based IT managed services provider, specializing in IT solutions and maintenance and managed Microsoft 365 and Azure services.
Founded in 2012, Jersey-based Calligo puts data and its privacy at the heart of a tailored collection of managed data services for SMEs and enterprises, including IT managed services, managed cloud services, data privacy services and privacy-by-design machine learning services. Investcorp Technology Partners via Investcorp Technology Fund IV backed Calligo in 2016 and has invested more than
Swappie, an end-to-end online marketplace for buying and selling refurbished smartphones, has raised a USD40.6 million (EUR35.8 million) Series B funding round. Participants in the round included TESI, alongside existing investors Lifeline Ventures, Reaktor Ventures, and Inventure – all of which participated in Swappie’s Series A in 2019 – bringing the total amount raised by Swappie to USD48 million (EUR42.5 million). The funding will be used to accelerate Swappie’s international expansion and to support the company’s rapid growth.
Swappie was co-founded in 2016 by Sami Marttinen (CEO) and Jiri Heinonen (CMO) with the simple mission of providing customers with a way to upgrade their phones
The CEPRES Private Capital Market Outlook for the first quarter of 2020 using the latest data from the CEPRES Platform shows how buyout fundraising in the US declined by almost 50 per cent QoQ and 20 per cent YoY, but is still substantially above volumes during the post-GFC era of 2009 -2012. Buyout fundraising volume in Europe is in stark contrast with a sharp decline of over 70 per cent QoQ and YoY, making it the lowest quarter since late 2017.
US buyout fund net IRR returns declined sharply between 2003 and 2006, which were the vintage years immediately preceding the impending crisis
Ancala Partners (Ancala), an independent infrastructure investment manager, has agreed to buy Hector Rail AB (Hector Rail) from EQT, including its subsidiary Hector Rail GmbH, on behalf of its European Infrastructure Fund II. Completion on the transaction is expected in Q3 2020.
Hector Rail is the largest privately-owned rail freight operator in Scandinavia and one of the few running corridor traffic between Sweden and Germany. It is growing its presence in Germany, Europe’s largest freight market, where it focuses on attractive niche segments, such as energy and intermodal flows.
Founded in 2004, the company has over 100 locomotives and
Enstar Group Limited (Enstar) has agreed to a recapitalisation of StarStone US Holdings (StarStone US) led by SkyKnight Capital (SkyKnight), Dragoneer Investment Group (Dragoneer) and Aquiline Capital Partners (Aquiline).The Investors have committed USD610 million in new equity capital which, together with the rollover of Enstar’s existing ownership, and an additional equity commitment of over USD20 million from management, will increase the equity capitalisation of StarStone US to over USD850 million. Enstar will receive a combination of cash consideration and shares in the recapitalized StarStone US, valued at a modest premium to book value.
As part of the capital infusion, a new
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
