Allocations
Cowgills business finance team has brokered a GBP5 million funding deal with Investec Capital Solutions for Wirral-based specialist technical recruitment company Russell Taylor Group.
Founded in 2005, the Group owns four businesses: Russell Taylor Group, Recruit Right, NMS Recruit and Perpetual Engineering Partnerships, providing technical temporary and permanent recruitment solutions for industries, including construction, engineering, manufacturing, oil, gas and energy sectors. Today, the business employs around 120 staff operating out of seven strategically located offices across the UK and has a combined turnover of cGBP35 million.
Having sold two further businesses in 2020, the Group’s working capital requirement was
Alpaca, a commission-free stock brokerage platform that offers APIs for fintech apps to connect and trade in US stocks, has closed a USD50 million Series B on the heels of driving 1500 per vcent year to date growth in brokerage accounts and expanding partnerships across Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, North and Latin Americas.
KKR and Salesforce Ventures have invested USD62 million in a Series B round for Copenhagen-based, no-code software test automation platform Leapwork, to accelerate its global expansion.
KKR is to acquire Ritchies Transport (Ritchies), a transportation operator in New Zealand with an 86-year heritage.
The investment – which marks KKR’s first infrastructure investment in New Zealand – will be used to advance the Company’s mission to better connect local communities, support the country’s expanding public transport network and promote greener transportation solutions.
Founded in Temuka in 1935, Ritchies is one of the largest transport providers in New Zealand, with a fleet of more than 1,600 vehicles and a network of 42 strategically located depots across the country. The Company provides the government, local councils, and private customers
Picsart has raised USD130 million in a Series C funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 with participation from new investors G Squared and Tribe Capital, as well as existing investors Sequoia, DCM, Graph Ventures, and Siguler Guf & Company.
With over USD100 million in annual revenue run rate, Picsart is now valued at over USD1 billion. The company has raised a total of USD195 million in capital since its founding.
“Picsart is powering visual culture and breaking barriers between inspiration and creativity,” says Hovhannes Avoyan, Picsart’s founder and CEO. “We want to make the world more creative and
Invest Green, Inc (IGI) has launched with a mission of providing all investors access to institutional quality Cleantech opportunities managed by a team that includes some of the most experienced and respected pioneers of the ESG movement.
Utilising proprietary research which has twice been ranked No1 in the World, IGI is creating a public company with a portfolio of potentially disruptive technologies.
“IGI’s team has been involved in this sector since the very beginning of ESG investing. The timing is ideal for a new investment vehicle which allows retail investors to participate in early stage Cleantech opportunities which would normally
Avestria Ventures, a Bay Area-based life sciences venture fund, has closed Avestria Ventures Fund I.
Founded by veteran life science industry executives Linda Greub and Corinne Nevinny, Avestria invests in early-stage women’s health companies and female-led life science ventures.
Avestria seeks to generate strong returns by focusing on these two under-invested sectors. Although the NIH has accepted sex as a biological variable since 2016, less than 1 per cent of the venture capital invested in the USD4 trillion US healthcare industry was directed towards women’s health in 2020 according to Pitchbook Inc. Similarly, only 2.3 per cent of venture capital
AgFunder, a foodtech and agtech VC firm, has held the final close of New Carnivore, its alternative protein fund, at USD21 million. The fund was oversubscribed, surpassing its hard cap.
ADM Ventures, the VC arm of the global food and commodities company Archer-Daniels-Midland, invested in the fund. Alexandria Venture Investments, a unit of USD30 billion real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, also participated.
New Carnivore has made seven investments to date, co-investing with leading VCs such as a16z, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and DCVC, as well as celebrities like Natalie Portman, John Legend, and Jay-Z. The fund is targeting
Stewart Information Services Corporation (NYSE-STC) is to acquire Informative Research (IR), a specialist in providing credit, consumer, and real estate data and technology services.
IR serves more than 3,000 customers across the United States and offers a wide range of mission critical solutions through its proprietary platform to streamline the loan cycle.
“Stewart continues to invest in the creation of an end-to-end, customer-focused real estate services and technology platform,” says Fred Eppinger, Stewart Chief Executive Officer. “By bringing IR into the Stewart family of companies, we further reflect that commitment and advance our data and analytics capabilities. I’m excited about
The London Corporate practice of Maples and Calder, the Maples Group’s law firm, has advised on all Cayman Islands Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) that have listed on Euronext Amsterdam so far this year.
The team, led by Jack Marriott Partner and head of the London Corporate practice along with Associate Christopher Oliver, continue to be selected to act as Cayman Islands counsel on SPAC IPOs as a result of the firm’s market-leading experience and comprehensive capabilities in this area.
In its most recent role, the London team acted as Cayman Islands counsel for Crystal Peak Acquisition on its
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
