Deals
Pixium Vision, a developer of retinal implant systems that aim to restore vision in the blind, has closed a EUR15m series A extension financing led by Sofinnova Partners, which becomes the largest investor.
Bpifrance, through the InnoBio fund, and existing series A investors Omnes Capital and Abingworth also participated.
In conjunction with the financing, Antoine Papiernik at Sofinnova Partners and Chahra Louafi at Bpifrance have joined the Pixium board of directors.
Pixium was co-founded by Dr Bernard Gilly and Prof José-Alain Sahel in November 2011 and built upon a close relationship with the Vision Institute at the National
Vista Equity Partners has completed its acquisition of Omnitracs, formerly a subsidiary of Qualcomm.
In conjunction with this announcement, Omnitracs has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Roadnet Technologies, a provider of fleet management software solutions for private fleets.
Roadnet, based in Baltimore, Maryland, is a provider of routing, scheduling, optimization and mobile resource management software solutions in the US and internationally. Roadnet's fleet management platform enables its customers to solve complex transportation problems in a simple manner.
"Roadnet is excited to become part of the Omnitracs and Vista family. Our solutions are very complementary and together we
GGM Venture Capital, though its sub-fund GGM High Growth IT Fund, has invested a total of EUR1.40m series A investment into Optimitive.
The round was led by GGM Venture Capital and joined by SURGE Accelerator. Optimitive graduated from the SURGE Accelerator programme in May 2013.
Founded in Spain in 2008, Optimitive provides a real time energy saving service through its software and services that allows large industrial companies to permanently and significantly reduce energy or raw material input costs and to lower CO2 emissions.
The capital raised will be used to accelerate the company's vision and commercially roll-out
MJ Hudson and MW Cornish & Co have merged their respective private equity and hedge funds practices with immediate effect.
The merged firm, known as MJ Hudson, will be committed to providing a specialist legal service to the global alternative assets industry.
The merger is the latest milestone in MJ Hudson’s growth trajectory which, earlier this year, saw the firm merge with Jersey-based legal practice VerrasLaw to provide a one stop onshore/offshore offering to clients, as well as bolster its M&A and venture capital team with an additional two senior lateral hires.
MJ Hudson managing partner Eamon Devlin
Guardian Capital Group is to acquire a specialist boutique emerging market equity investment firm in London, providing the firm with an international platform to expand its asset management business.
Guardian has agreed to acquire London-based Zephyr Management (UK) Ltd, manager of the Zephyr Aurora Fund, an emerging market equity fund led by the experienced emerging market equity portfolio management team of Steve Bates and Clive Lloyd.
Bates (pictured), portfolio manager and chief investment officer for the Zephyr Aurora Fund, has led the Zephyr Management (UK) Ltd investment operations since 2002, following a successful career as head of JP Morgan
Aetna has agreed to acquire UK-based InterGlobal from a group led by its majority shareholder Alchemy Partners.
InterGlobal has more than 65,000 medical members worldwide, and specialises in international private medical insurance for groups and individuals in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.
The terms of the transaction, which are not material to Aetna, were not disclosed. Aetna expects to finance the acquisition from available resources. The transaction is expected to close during the first half of 2014 and be neutral to Aetna's financial results in 2014.
“The addition of InterGlobal to Aetna’s international business will expand
Peer-to-business lending platform rebuildingsociety.com has passed the GBP1m borrowing milestone following a surge in interest from small and medium sized business (SME) borrowers.
Strong growth in lending and demand from UK small businesses in the past three months has enabled rebuildingsociety.com to pass the milestone and facilitate nearly GBP1.2m of loans to SMEs in a nine month period.
The rapid growth has encouraged rebuildingsociety.com to target GBP20m of borrowing by the end of 2014.
Average loans to SMEs are now GBP61,000 and the Leeds-based firm has received 50 per cent more loan requests from businesses in the three
Dolphin Venture Fund I, a seed fund organised under the laws of Delaware, is raising up to USD100m to seed fund start-ups and early stage ventures in Greece, the US, and the Philippines.
The fund has over USD12m in investor commitments. Investors are expecting an annual ROI of 34 per cent, but based on the progress made by some hedge funds in Greece, Dolphin Venture Fund believes the number could be much higher.
The company has about a dozen start-ups and ongoing companies in its portfolio, notably a start-up in the Philippines, called Pakwan Intl that creates call centres
Alternative asset manager The Carlyle Group has held the final close of Carlyle Partners VI, a USD13bn fund that invests in US corporate buyouts and strategic minority investments across six industries.
A total of 269 investors from 43 countries committed capital to the fund. The team began fundraising in late 2011 with a USD10bn target.
Allan Holt, managing director and co-head of the US buyout group, says: "We are grateful for the support of our fund investors, many of whom are repeat investors. Institutional and individual investors across the globe understand the value of having a proven buyout fund
Canadian venture capital (VC) investment rose sharply in Q3 2013, while Canadian buyout and related private equity (PE) deal-making showed continued moderate decline over the same period in 2012.
These were among the key findings from data released by CVCA – Canada's Venture Capital & Private Equity Association and research partner Thomson Reuters.
Investment activity in Canada's VC market rose sharply in terms of both deals and dollars in the third quarter of 2013. Disbursements by VC funds totalled CAD541m between July and September, up 48 per cent from the CAD366m invested at the same time in 2012. In
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