Bulgarian euShipments.com, leader in providing comprehensive courier, logistic, and fulfilment solutions for e-commerce players from Bulgaria and CEE, has closed its first round of external financing with private equity firm BlackPeak Capital, investing up to EUR7.5 million into the company via BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund, its second fund. The new capital will be used to accelerate the growth of the company through acquisitions and scaling of organic expansion on regional CEE and Western European markets. euShipments.com offers a comprehensive range of services to cater for the needs of regional e-commerce exporters. 

LPW Group, a Wynnchurch Capital (Wynnchurch) portfolio company and the parent company of Penn Machine and Western Flange, has acquired El Mar Ventures, (and its subsidiaries) and Advanced Industrial Technologies. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the company provides specialty valves, pneumatic actuators and gears used in chemical, petrochemical, LNG, refining, renewable, pulp & paper and other industrial applications. The Company goes to market through its four leading brands: Ladish Valves, Smith Valves, AIT and Diamond Gear.

Causal, a collaborative platform for financial modelling, has raised a USD20 million Series A funding round led by Coatue and Accel. The investment round — which follows a USD4.2 million seed round in March — also included a number of high-profile angel investors including Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, Notion COO Akshay Kothari and Brex CRO Sam Blond. Existing investors include AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant and Adobe CPO Scott Belsky. The funding follows the rapid growth of the London-founded startup which added 30 per cent more customers month-on-month last year. Causal is hiring rapidly, with plans to

Unleash, the largest open source feature management platform, has raised USD14 million in a Series A round led by Spark Capital. Frontline Ventures, firstminute capital, Alliance Venture, and Arkwright X also participated in the round. The new capital will be used to expand in the United States and Europe and scale product development and go-to-market organization including marketing, sales and customer success. Unleash also announced that Spark Capital’s Natalie Sandman has joined its Board of Directors.

Align Capital Partners (ACP) has closed its second strategic add-on for Marco Rubber & Plastics (Marco) with the acquisition of Anchor Rubber Products (Anchor), a value-added provider of O-rings, gaskets and other specialty rubber products sold across a diverse set of end markets. Operating under the leadership of second-generation family owner Mike Shannon, Anchor currently services customers within various industrial end markets. Founded three decades ago by Bob Shannon, Anchor has grown to service customers throughout the Northeastern United States.  This acquisition further expands Marco’s specialty product offering of custom gaskets and O-rings while also increasing the Company’s leadership position

TELEO Capital Management (TELEO) has acquired CHCS Services (CHCS) from Capgemini America. CHCS is a technology-enabled third-party administrator (TPA) for the senior health and eldercare markets. CHCS specialises in supplemental health care solutions for senior markets with a focus on long term care (LTC) and Medicare Supplement (MedSup) plans.  CHCS provides third-party administration and support as well as customized care management solutions and services for accident and health, disability, all Medicare supplement plans, and other forms of supplemental insurance policies for global insurance carriers.

The Mothership one of the UK’s fastest growing eCommerce rollups, has raised USD22 million in funding from leading entrepreneurial private investors. The investment will be used to expand the company’s portfolio of loveable, more sustainable brands.   Amongst the investors are Glenn Elliott, founder of Reward Gateway and now part of Tenzing Private Equity; Jonathan Quin, founder of payments business World First; Adrian Thompson, CEO of Aspen Pumps; Simon Morrish, who has founded and grown several successful businesses, including Ground Control; and Giles Palmer, founder of BrandWatch.

WHAG, a provider of housing and support services to homeless women, and men and women experiencing and fleeing domestic abuse, has received its first social investment loan of GBP2.15 million from Social and Sustainable Capital (SASC). WHAG was set up as Rochdale Women’s Housing Aid Group in 1981, to provide affordable supported accommodation to homeless women aged 16-65. It was the first organisation in Rochdale to support this group of people. Over time their work has expanded to include domestic abuse services for women and men and support for Young Parents.    The loan from SASC’s Social and Sustainable Housing

French-Nigerian B2B startup Kwik (www.Kwik.delivery), a provider of SaaS logistics services to social vendors and e-commerce platforms in Africa, has closed a USD2 million Series A round. The round was led by XBTO Ventures, an investor focused on digital asset and fintech investments, along with investments from several new and existing shareholders, including venture fund HUMLA Ventures, Leo STIEGELER, founder of Pulse, Africa, French tech investment holding NABUBOTO, Ubisoft’s CEO Yves GUILLEMOT.  Kwik is focusing on building digital services for the three key pillars of last-mile delivery, e-commerce and fulfilment, and financial services.

Investor and developer Rocket Properties has refinanced its Linen Court development in London’s Shoreditch area with a six-year, GBP70 million term loan facility provided by M&G’s Real Estate Finance team. The funding was arranged by real estate advisory firm Moorhall Capital on behalf of Rocket Properties. Located just off Old Street’s ‘Silicon Roundabout’, Linen Court is a 150,000 sq ft mixed use scheme that was originally completed by Rocket Properties in 2012. The development comprises a 10-storey office building that is occupied by WeWork, a 251-bed Premier Inn, pub and residential units. M&G was the incumbent funding partner, and the