Deals
Assetz Capital has partnered with Varengold Bank AG to provide funding, alongside its retail investors, to UK SME borrowers through the Assetz Capital platform.
Varengold is a German private bank which is active in deploying funds through marketplace lending platforms across Europe.
The partnership with Varengold brings additional institutional funding to further support the strong growth in lending by Assetz Capital and further broadens the sources of funding available to the leading peer-to-peer business lender. This is the latest in a string of institutional funding partnerships and further bolsters Assetz Capital’s funding lines for the support of the SME business sector
Private equity investor Maven Capital Partners (Maven) has led a GBP7 million investment in Northumberland-based AVID Technology Group (AVID), a specialist in the manufacture and design of components for electric and hybrid vehicles.
The transaction is led by Maven’s Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) together with the North East Development Capital Fund, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Maven, and from AVID’s existing shareholders NVM Private Equity and Downing Ventures. The funding will enable AVID to increase production volumes of its current component product range and enable the firm to invest in further development of class leading
Beechbrook Capital, a specialist direct lender, has reached the first close of its second UK SME Credit Fund, with commitments of GBP128 million. The Fund has also made its first two investments, in Hosted Desktop UK and Gravity Global.
Beechbrook’s UK SME Credit II supports small and medium-sized businesses in the UK with a turnover of between GBP10m and GBP100m and EBITDA of GBP1 million and above. It will provide mainly senior secured loans to non-private equity-backed companies to support acquisitions, buy-outs, shareholder re-alignments, refinancings and general expansion plans.
The Fund completed its first investment in Exeter-based Hosted Desktop
innogy Innovation Hub, which identifies, funds, and mentors game-changing technologies and ideas, has completed a seed investment in UK-headquartered AI powered CCTV monitoring company, Calipsa.
Financial terms have not been disclosed.
The investment will enable Calipsa to further refine its product and support its growth strategy in the UK and Europe, leveraging the Innovation Hub’s extensive global network.
Founded in 2016 by Mohammad Rashid Khan and Boris Ploix, Calipsa aims to transform how Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) video monitoring and analysis is conducted. The Calipsa platform is built on state of the art deep learning techniques to automatically
Stable, a venture backed fintech aiming to disrupt the commodity price risk management (CPRM) industry, has launched a risk management platform which is initially focussed on food and farming businesses in over 15 countries around the world.
Stable has raised USD6 million in seed funding from Anthemis, Syngenta Ventures, Baloise and Ascot Underwriting.
Price volatility is a major risk to sellers and buyers, yet the current financial tools to deal with price risk are currently designed for financiers, rather than farmers. Farmers require a minimum of 2000 acres to justify a Futures account, but less than 1 per cent
Validus Capital (Validus), Singapore’s leading SME financing platform, has successfully raised USD15.2 million (SGD20.5 million) in an oversubscribed Series B funding round.
Investment in Validus’ Series B round was led by FMO, Netherlands’ public-private development bank. FMO has over 300 investments in banking and financial services institutions (BFSIs). Its investment in Validus marked FMO’s first fintech investment in Southeast Asia, a region which saw over USD5.7 billion in fintech investments in 2017 according to KPMG. Participating investors also include Taiwan’s Cathay Financial Holdings, Singapore’s Openspace Ventures (previously NSI Ventures), Temasek investment arm Vertex Ventures, Thailand’s AddVentures by SCG and Vietnam’s
BlueMountain Capital Management (BlueMountain) has launched a new national behavioural health platform, led by industry veterans Kirk Kureska and Rob Waggener.
The new company, Promises Behavioral Health (Promises), initially will operate 12 facilities and programs across seven states to provide a comprehensive range of treatment options for substance abuse, sexual addiction, trauma, eating disorders, and other mental health disorders, as well as programs for veterans.
BlueMountain and an associated investor group recently completed the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Elements Behavioral Health (Elements) upon its emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 1 March, and also own
SE Capital Partners (SE Capital) has acquired TLC Companies (TLC) under its recent partnership with Berggruen Holdings.
“The partnership, Berggruen/SE Capital Holdings (BSECP), is extremely flexible on transaction size and structure, focusing largely on lower middle market transactions with enterprise values ranging from USD15 to USD100 million,” says Paul Mulvaney partner at SE Capital. BSECP is looking to deploy at least USD400 million of equity capital across multiple investment platforms with TLC representing the first such investment platform of the partnership.
“We partnered with SE Capital as a result of their long track record of buying, building and growing
Quick Reach Powered Access – a UK-based equipment hire business – has secured a GBP4.5million equity investment from Mercia Fund Managers.
The investment, which is the second from Mercia’s GBP45.1million EV Growth II fund, will allow the Manchester-based company to double its fleet of powered access equipment and continue its nationwide growth.
Founded in 2014 by brothers John and David Barton, who have a background in the equipment hire industry, Quick Reach now has depots in Manchester, Birmingham, Doncaster, East London and Wishaw in Scotland, and a fleet of over 1,000 units ranging from large telehandlers to smaller scissor
Middle market private equity firm One Equity Partners’ (OEP) portfolio company, Orion Business Innovation (Orion), has combined with MERA, an outsourced product development business headquartered in Switzerland.
OEP is making a significant investment in MERA to support the transaction.
MERA provides customised solutions and software services, including outsourced product development, software and architecture design, implementation and integration, and project management, to blue chip clients internationally. The company has a 30-year history of providing highly technical solutions in the telecommunications and telecom equipment, industrial automation, automotive and transportation, and financial technology industries. MERA has over 1,200 software engineers in off-shore
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
