MidOcean Partners, a middle market private equity firm focused on the business services and consumer sectors, has acquired Cloyes from Hidden Harbor Capital Partners. Cloyes is a North American specialist in timing drive systems and engine components for original equipment manufacturers and the automotive aftermarket, selling its products under the Cloyes brand throughout North America and Dynagear in Mexico.  MidOcean Partners plans to continue the Company’s aggressive growth plan through comprehensive organic initiatives and strategic M&A. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  This transaction represents MidOcean’s third recent investment in the auto aftermarket industry after completing investments in

Funds advised by Equistone Partners Europe (Equistone) have acquired a majority stake in eperi, a provider of cybersecurity software for cloud applications. The security specialist from Pfungstadt, Hessen, has been sold by venture capital investors Evolution Equity Partners and btov. Elmar Eperiesi-Beck, Founder and CEO of eperi, will continue to lead the company as CEO and retains a significant stake in the business.  The new partnership will concentrate on the company’s further scaling and internationalisation, as well as a targeted buy-and-build strategy. Both parties agreed not to disclose the financial terms of the transaction.

Vision Innovation Partners, an eye care platform and a portfolio company of Centre Partners, has acquired SIEHT, a leading eye and laser centre with two locations in Fredericksburg and Stafford, Virginia. The acquisition broadens Vision Innovation Partners’ presence in Virginia and strengthens its growing network of ophthalmology practices in the Mid-Atlantic region. Vision Innovation Partners is backed by Centre Partners, a leading middle-market private equity firm focused on the healthcare and consumer sectors. Centre seeks to partner with founders and management teams to build exceptional businesses, providing management teams with access to its unique resources, including an extended network of

Finnish biotech startup Onego Bio Ltd has announced the successful closure of EUR10 million seed round with participation from venture capital investors Agronomics Limited and Maki VC. Onego Bio’s technology, developed and researched at VTT, enables production of bioalbumen with cellular agriculture means. Bioalbumen is an animal-free egg protein, produced with a specific precision fermentation process that creates identical egg white protein without the need for animals. The company believes that the demand for animal-free egg white protein will be growing globally, because intensive animal farming causes many environmental hazards, such as excessive use of land, greenhouse gas emissions, water

NexGen Cloud, a Web 3.0 focused IaaS company, has made a USD14 million investment in the development of Europe’s Largest decentralised storage project. This investment has enabled the development of two large-scale Filecoin storage operations located in Belgium and The Netherlands, featuring Tier III data centres across both sites. Over the coming 12 months, this landmark project will provide over 100 Petabytes of data storage capabilities aimed at managed service providers (MSPs), businesses and consumers seeking more affordable storage solutions, without having to compromise on security.   The company has also announced that it has entered into a swap with

TargED Biopharmaceuticals (TargED), a private biotechnology company focused on developing improved treatments for thrombotic diseases, has raised Series A financing of EUR39 million to accelerate development of its lead compound, Microlyse. The financing was led by an international syndicate with equal contributions from Andera Partners, Fund+, Hadean Ventures, Inkef Capital and Sunstone Life Science Ventures, and joined by existing investors FIRST (Managed by BioGeneration Ventures), Curie Capital and Utrecht Health Seed Fund.  TargED will focus development on two initial indications: acquired Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Purpura (aTTP) and Acute Ischemic Stroke (AIS).

Hambro Perks has completed an investment in Finnish industrial technology business Altum Technologies. Headquartered in Helsinki and founded in 2016, Altum has developed market-leading power ultrasound technology to clean fouling from industrial equipment without stopping production. Altum’s patented ZPD technology also minimises maintenance time, energy consumption and use of hazardous chemicals in these cleaning processes.   Altum is the latest investment from Access Fund II, the second fund in Hambro Perks’ venture secondaries franchise. The Access Fund purchases minority stakes in UK and European private technology companies, providing liquidity to early shareholders, whether they be founder, former or current management,

Beaufort Capital and Pollen Street Capital have formed a strategic joint venture to improve access to finance for high quality real estate developers nationwide. The new lending partnership is expected to fund senior and stretched senior loans to support the development of much needed homes across the UK, as well as student accommodation, care homes and other mixed-use assets.   Beaufort Capital is an award-winning specialist real estate lender with a long track record, having financed and developed more than 5,000,000 sqft of UK real estate over 50 years. Pollen Street Capital, a private equity and credit focused manager, has

Planet Smart City, a London headquartered specialist in smart affordable housing, has launched a EUR60 million capital raise to accelerate the Group’s ambitious business plans. Since its establishment in 2015, Planet Smart City, which specialises in large-scale projects that create smart neighbourhoods and affordable homes – has raised more than EUR160 million, from 390 institutional and private investors. In 2021, the Group recorded revenues of approximately USD105 million dollars (EUR93 million), doubling the result of 2020 which had been USD52 million dollars. The EUR60 million capital increase is aimed at accelerating the implementation of Planet’s ambitious business plan that includes

Semarion Ltd, a University of Cambridge spin-out company from the Cavendish Laboratory combining materials engineering and cell biology to tackle unmet drug screening needs, has closed a GBP2.14 million seed funding round led by Parkwalk Advisors. University of Cambridge Seed Funds, Martlet Capital, and angel investors also contributed to the fundraise.   The funding will support the commercial development of Semarion’s SemaCyte cell assaying platform. It will also enable further expansion of the team, as Semarion recruits scientists and engineers, and establishes additional research partnerships with biopharma partners for bespoke solutions to cell screening challenges.