Allocations
WILsquare Capital, a St. Louis-based private equity firm has completed the acquisition of Quest Solutions (Quest). Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
“WILsquare Capital is extremely pleased to partner with the management team of Quest to continue investing in providing specialised solutions to the insurance industry,” says Bill Willhite, Managing Partner at WILsquare Capital. “Quest’s leadership team has built a tremendous reputation based on a customer centric service model and strong cultural values, which permeate throughout the organisation.”
As an industry leader in partnering with large insurance companies and fleet companies, Quest provides Emergency Roadside Services (ERS),
Birmingham-based Redbeard, a firm that develops code for Apple (iOS) apps has secured investment from the British Robotics Seed Fund (BRSF).
The BRSF has provided GBP80,000 funding alongside GBP50,000 from private investors. Monies will be used to expand the company’s global development community and Code Store.
The investment sees Redbeard join the BRSF’s portfolio of UK firms in robotics and machine learning related fields, from Zoa Robotics to Botskill and Tethered Drone Systems.
The Redbeard Code Store provides source code of complete end-to-end apps and trusted template code developed fully by its in-house team saving users time and
Instapage, a landing page and post-click optimisation solution for digital advertisers, has closed a USD15 million growth investment from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital, the growth-focused private investment platform within Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
Investment funds will allow Instapage to accelerate the enterprise adoption of the Instapage post-click optimisation solution, expedite platform development to further help large-scale marketers and advertisers improve ROI, and expand sales and client service operations.
Instapage was founded in 2012 to address the digital marketer’s problem that 96 per cent of ad clicks do not convert by streamlining the process of deploying unique landing pages. Since
Sixpoint Partners, a global investment bank serving the middle market, has closed the Huron Flex Equity Fund with USD142 million of total capital commitments.
The Huron Flex Fund, which is the sixth investment vehicle for Huron Capital Partners (Huron Capital) since 1999, easily surpassed its initial target of USD100 million after only seven months in the market. Similar to Huron Capital’s other funds, The Huron Flex Fund’s diversified investor base includes endowments, foundations, multi-manager funds, corporate pensions and family offices. The Huron Flex Fund received strong support from existing Huron Capital investors as well as a number of new LP
Expel, a company that replaces what organisations spend on managed security service providers (MSSPs), announced it has secured USD20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Ariel Tseitlin, a partner at Scale Venture Partners, will join Expel’s board of directors. Scale joins Expel’s existing investors: Battery Ventures, Greycroft, Lightbank, NEA, Paladin Capital Group and Profile Capital Management – all of whom also participated. Including this round, Expel has secured a total of USD27.5 million in funding to date.
“Security is now a board-level concern.
The EQT Infrastructure III fund (EQT Infrastructure) has completed its majority stake investment in Spirit Communications. With the transaction complete, Spirit will be combined with Lumos, which was acquired in November 2017.
The combination of Spirit and Lumos creates a super-regional fibre network stretching from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, with the vast majority of revenue and fibre network concentrated in the high-growth markets of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Together, Spirit and Lumos will operate a network of approximately 21,000 fibre route miles and well over one million total fibre strand miles. The combined business will have over 9,000 on-net
Global venture capital firm AXA Strategic Ventures is rebranding and will now be known as AXA Venture Partners.
AXA Venture Partners, a USD450million venture capital firm backed by AXA, has participated in 32 deals since 2016, making it the most active venture capital firm backed by an insurance company, according to Crunchbase. Recent investments have covered a wide range of areas, including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digital health, SaaS technology, insurtech/fintech.
The new positioning reflects the Company’s approach of establishing strong partnerships with its portfolio companies and other VC investors. Beyond capital, AXA Venture Partners acts as a conduit for
Audax Private Equity (Audax) has completed the sale of Wheel Pros to Clearlake Capital, a private equity firm based in Santa Monica, California.
Wheel Pros, headquartered in Denver, CO, is a leading designer, marketer, and distributor of branded aftermarket wheels, performance tires and accessories.
Geoffrey S Rehnert, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Audax Group, says: “Wheel Pros is a leader in the automotive aftermarket industry. The Wheel Pros team has demonstrated tremendous success in growing the business, and we wish both the management team and Clearlake Capital continued success.”
Jay Mitchell, Managing Director, Audax Private Equity, says: “Randy White, Jody
The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has published the fundraising figure for the Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) sector, which raised GBP728 million for the 2017/18 tax year, the second highest amount since the inception of VCTs and an increase of 34 per cent on last year’s figure (GBP542 million).
It is also the highest amount ever raised at the current level of 30 per cent upfront tax relief.
The highest VCT fundraising figure was in the 2005/6 tax year when the sector raised GBP779 million, when the initial tax relief on investments was 40 per cent.
VCT assets
Symphony Communication Services has raised USD67 million in new capital from new investors Barclays, Bpifrance, the French investment bank, and CLSA, along with a group of existing investors.
This brings Symphony’s total capital raise to date to over USD300 million from the world’s leading financial services firms, global venture capital funds, and technology companies.
Symphony’s secure team collaboration platform has reached critical mass with over 300 firms and 320,000 users. The raise validates Symphony’s leadership position in financial services and will enable the company to accelerate its product roadmap, expand its core offering for financial institutions and broaden its
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
