Allocations
Noerr has advised Ensono in its acquisition of Wipro’s hosted data centre services business for USD405 million, which sees eight data centres, and nearly 900 employees, transition to Ensono.
The acquisition significantly expands Ensono’s geographic footprint and global service capabilities.
Ensono and Wipro have also signed a long-term partnership agreement to jointly address hybrid IT requirements of Wipro’s new and existing enterprise customers. As part of the agreement, Wipro will make a strategic investment of USD55 million in Ensono.
Ensono, a portfolio company of Charlesbank Capital Partners and M/C Partners, provides hybrid IT services, from cloud to mainframe,
Digital Reasoning, a specialist in artificial intelligence (AI) that understands human intentions and behaviours, has raised USD30 million in a new funding round led by BNP Paribas.
Angel Rodriguez-Issa, Global Head of Strategic Investments, Global Markets at BNP Paribas, has joined Digital Reasoning’s board of directors.
Barclays and Square Capital also joined the round, as well as previous investors Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq, Lemhi Ventures, HCA, and the Partnership Fund for New York City.
“Global financial institutions are turning to AI to help drive digital transformation in order to improve revenues and efficiencies,” says Brett Jackson, CEO of Digital
Private equity fund manager YFM Equity Partners (YFM) has backed the MBO of Checkmate Fire Solutions Limited, UK-based passive fire protection provider.
The investment in Checkmate Fire marks the fifth investment from the YFM managed fund, YFM Equity Partners 2016 LP.
Checkmate Fire is the UK’s leading passive fire protection company, providing fully compliant services including survey, design, specification and installation of solutions for fire stopping/air sealing, compartmentation, fire boarding and structural steel protection. Complementing this Checkmate Fire also specialises in fire door surveying, restoration and installation, and provides a fully bespoke range of fire resistant glazing solutions.
UBS Asset Management’s (UBS-AM) Real Estate & Private Markets (REPM) business has launched its second infrastructure debt fund, Archmore Infrastructure Debt Platform II (IDP II), with seed commitments from initial investors of more than EUR448.4 million.
IDP II has been launched on the back of the successful performance of its predecessor – the Archmore Infrastructure Debt Platform I (IDP I), which is now 94 per cent deployed and has a strong pipeline of attractive new investment opportunities. The strategy of this follow-on fund remains consistent; IDP II will focus on private infrastructure debt opportunities in Western Europe, primarily through direct
Farmstead, a new AI-powered digital micro-grocer that curates and delivers fresh, local foods from farm-to-fridge in 60 minutes, has secured an additional USD2 million capital infusion, led by Resolute Ventures and Social Capital, with additional participation from SV Angel and Y Combinator.
This latest round brings Farmstead’s total seed funding to USD4.8 million to date.
Farmstead will use the new funds to scale operations of its rapidly growing AI grocery sourcing and delivery service, continue building out its core AI technology, accelerate hiring, and expand its service well beyond the Bay Area.
“As Farmstead continues to grow at
HarbourVest Partners has held the final close of its flagship Europe, Asia, and emerging markets focused fund, HIPEP VIII Partnership at USD1.7 billion, exceeding its target and an ahead of the HIPEP VII Partnership fund which closed in August 2015 at USD1.5 billion.
“HarbourVest has long believed that solving for the unique challenges that our investors face must be at the core of everything we do,” says Peter Wilson, Managing Director and member of the Executive Management Committee, HarbourVest. “HarbourVest has invested more than USD25 billion in Europe, Asia Pacific, and other emerging markets over the last 30 years. These
Mobeus Equity Partners and Beringea have co-invested in a GBP5 million funding round for mpb.com, a specialist online marketplace for second-hand photographic and filmmaking equipment.
Millions of new cameras, interchangeable lenses, and other equipment and accessories are sold each year, generating billions of dollars in retail revenue across Europe and the US. mpb.com facilitates the secondary market for this equipment, which has primarily been served by traditional retailers and online generalist marketplaces such as eBay. Inaccurate, unclear, or inconsistent listings on first-generation peer-to-peer online marketplaces can cause significant variation in price for identical products. mpb.com’s proprietary technology manages the entire
Victory Park Capital (VPC) has launched a new fund together with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, to invest in financial technology companies in emerging markets.
The partnership aims to improve access to debt capital for financial technology companies that lend to small businesses and consumers in emerging markets.
The new fund will combine VPC’s decade-long expertise in investing in financial services and financial technology with IFC’s leading role in investing in these sectors in developing countries. VPC and IFC will target growth investments in technology-driven companies across emerging markets with a focus
Culum Capital, a Singapore-based receivables and supply chain financing platform, has secured an investment from GTR Ventures which will be used to accelerate Culum’s expansion and support growth.
According to The World Trade Organisation (WTO, 2016), 80 per cent of trade is financed by credit or credit insurance. WTO estimates the value of unmet demand for trade finance in developing Asia is USD700 billon. The partnership will improve international investor access to this opportunity in Asia.
Culum Capital’s sophisticated platform provides Asian corporates with access to working capital funded by accredited investors. The platform provides an alternative form
Aquila Capital has launched a new energy transition strategy, ETIF (Energy Transition Infrastructure Fund) which will invest in energy infrastructure assets that are essential to Europe’s energy transition.
Aquila Capital currently manages renewable energy generation assets with a capacity of about 2,200MW.
ETIF will pursue the three most important sub-sectors of the energy transition, namely renewable energy generation, energy storage and energy transportation. It is planned to launch the strategy as a Luxembourg-based Reversed Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF) with a target volume of EUR 750 million and a term of 12 years. The target net IRR is 8 per
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
