Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) today announced the first close of the Allianz Asia Pacific Secured Lending Fund (AAPSL) at $476 million (c €450 million).  The AAPSL is AllianzGI’s first Asia Pacific private credit fund that allows institutional investors to invest alongside Allianz. The investment focus is on growing businesses with a sound market position looking to capitalise on rising underlying fundamental demand in Asia.  The fund is expected to hold its final closing by the end of this year, with a target fund size amounted to $700 million (c €650 million).

ECI Partners has completed the sale of Imagesound to Livingbridge, generating a 2.6x return.

Paymob, Egypt’s market-leading omni-channel financial services platform, has raised $50 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Kora Capital, PayPal Ventures, and Clay Point.  Other new participating investors included Helios Digital Ventures, British International Investment, and Nclude. All existing investors, including A15, FMO, and Global Ventures also participated. The proceeds will be used to turbocharge the company to expand its product range, reinforce its leadership in the Egyptian market, and expand into new markets across the Middle East and Africa region. This funding round is the largest ever fintech, Series B in Egypt, and brings the total

Redcliffe Lifetech (Redcliffe), one of India’s leading diagnostics platforms, has raised $61 million in a funding round led by LeapFrog Investments (LeapFrog). Healthquad, Schroders, LC Nueva, Growth Spark Ventures and existing investors Chiratae Ventures and Alkemi Venture Partners also participated in the round.     The investment will be used to expand Redcliffe’s geographic reach across India, with a focus on expanding its low-cost but high quality Direct to Consumer Diagnostics into tier 2, 3 and 4 cities, providing affordable, rapid, and convenient pathology services from glucose to genetics in millions of households. Funding will also be used to scale

IMB Partners, a middle market private equity firm specialising in utility and government agency services, has made a strategic investment in Carr & Duff, a southeastern Pennsylvania corporation that provides specialty electrical construction services to a range of mid-Atlantic customers. The Duff brothers, Bob, Eddie and Jack, will remain with the business after IMB’s investment, will continue to work in leadership roles and will have meaningful ownership going forward. C&D customers include a range of commercial, industrial and other specialty industries along the East Coast. The company was founded in 1958, and is based in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania. Triago acted

Decrypt, a crypto and decentralised web-focused media company, and production arm Decrypt Studios, a Web3 studio specialising in metaverse activations, has completed a spinout from ConsenSys Mesh, the blockchain accelerator and incubator, after raising $10 million in funding on a $50 million post-money valuation. The infusion of capital comes from more than 15 investors, including venture capital firms, DAOs, Web3 organisations, and angels, in keeping with Decrypt’s mission of progressive decentralisation as it goes independent. Decrypt was co-founded by magazine veteran Josh Quittner (Time Inc), Ilan Hazan, and Ryan Bubinski during the “crypto winter” of 2018. It was launched inside

EW Healthcare Partners (EW) has acquired a majority stake in Grundium Oy, a specialist in advanced imaging technology based in Finland. The founders and management of Grundium will retain a significant minority stake in the company and remain in leadership positions. The founders will work closely with EW in continuing to drive revenue and EBITDA growth. Founded in 2015, Grundium produces revolutionary high-precision smart, connected and portable digital microscope scanners used in diagnostic pathology, serving a variety of end users ranging from animal and human healthcare clinics to laboratory service firms. 

Synerise, an AI-first behavioural data platform headquartered in Poland, has closed a $23 million Series B round led by Carpathian Partners, a CEE-focused technology investment fund.

The New York State Common Retirement Fund ($278 billion AuM) has steadily increased its allocations to private markets, and has finished Q1 at $2.8 billion, according to a report by Alternatives Watch. The pension fund has increased its exposure to private equity, credit, real estate and hedge funds, with its credit strategies seeing the best results and totalling $1.2 billion in capital.

The Government Employees Pension Fund in South Africa is looking to invest ZAR25 billion ($1.6 billion) in private firms, according to a report from Bloomberg. A joint statement from GEPF and the Public Investment Corp (ZAR2.1 trillion AuM) reveals that all investment decisions will be made by the PIC. Financial details have not been disclosed.  The initial planned allocation was ZAR70 billion (~ $4.4 billion), however, after a judicial enquiry was launched against the PIC, the size of the allocation was reduced.