Allocations
Eka Ventures has held a final close on a GBP68 million (USD95 million) fund, making it the largest impact-driven early stage venture capital fund focused on the UK.
Investors in the fund include British Business Bank, BSC, Isomer, Guys and St Thomas Foundation, Planet First Partners, Draper Esprit, Snowball and others, including 24 entrepreneurs, 12 of whom are founders the Eka partners have previously backed.
Eka was founded on the belief that the most successful businesses of the next generation will be built to solve a clear social or environmental challenge and is integrating impact investing into mainstream venture capital.
Arlington Capital Partners (Arlington Capital), a Washington, DC-based private equity firm, in partnership with the existing management team and founders, has completed the acquisition of TRP Infrastructure Services (TRP).
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, TRP is a leading provider of safety-critical and highly regulated roadway marking and traffic control solutions primarily to state and local government end-customers, whom it serves either directly or through general contractors. TRP’s core offering focuses on recurring maintenance projects to maintain the safety of America’s roadways. The Company has a broad and diverse footprint, with operations in Texas, Florida, Georgia, North
Phoenix Group Holdings is to sell Ark Life Assurance Company DAC (Ark Life) to Irish Life Group Limited (Irish Life) for a total cash consideration of EUR230 million (GBP197 million).
The cash consideration represents 0.91x Solvency II Own Funds and is payable on completion, expected by early 2022, subject to customary regulatory and anti-trust approvals. The transaction is not expected to materially impact Phoenix’s Solvency or Long-Term Free Cash positions.
This transaction simplifies our European operations and accelerates the cash release from this business. The Group expects to redeploy the capital into higher return growth opportunities to drive incremental future
OTB Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology businesses with R&D in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and global potential, has launched the new OTB Growth Fund I.
The fund, totalling USD60 million, provides OTB Ventures with the capabilities to support its successful portfolio companies with additional follow-on investments as they scale-up to pursue and accelerate international growth opportunities. The fund is backed by the ESCALAR programme of the European Commission and the European Investment Fund (EIF), a new investment approach supporting venture capital and growth financing for promising European companies.
The news follows from the 2020
Dogger Bank Wind Farm has signed a contract with Jan De Nul Group for the transport and installation of 87 GE Haliade-X 14 MW offshore wind turbines at the final Dogger Bank C phase of the project, located up to 200 km off the UK’s Yorkshire coast.
This third contract award follows the signature in 2020 of packages A and B, each featuring 95 units of 13 MW turbines. The contract is subject to Dogger Bank C reaching Financial Close in late 2021.
The 3.6GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm, which is being delivered in the North Sea in three
The majority owner of Polygon group, Triton Fund III, has signed an agreement to sell its investment.
ArtistWorks has been acquired by Growth Catalyst Partners’ portfolio company TrueFire Studios, a consortium of major online music instruction companies.
The acquisition brings together leading names and pioneers in online music education – including ArtistWorks, TrueFire, JamPlay, and FaderPro – who together span dozens of genres and instruments while delivering access to Grammy Award-winning artists, top session players, and world-renowned educators. The deal was completed with financial support from mid-market private equity firm Growth Catalyst Partners.
Founded in 2008, ArtistWorks partners with master musicians and enables them to create and preserve their teaching legacy online. Each hand-selected ArtistWorks teacher
A fast-growing company that delivers high-speed internet connectivity to sites that lack the usual infrastructure has secured a further GBP500,000 investment from the North East Venture Fund (NEVF), supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Mercia.
Trench Networks’ innovative device, Outpost, aggregates connections from all the major mobile networks and combines them to provide a reliable internet service. The business, which started out by supplying construction sites, has recently launched a ‘Wi-Fi SOS’ service for businesses suffering wi-fi outages or moving to sites which lack connectivity.
The latest funding will enable it to take advantage of
Houlihan Lokey, a global investment bank, has acquired boutique advisory firm Baylor Klein as it continues to grow its Corporate Finance business in Europe.
Founded in 2008 by Managing Director Tim Leach, Baylor Klein specialises in providing M&A and corporate finance advisory services to the multinational and independent owners of household, beauty, and personal care (HBPC) assets globally. The transaction signed and completed on 8 July.
Jay Novak, Global Head of the Consumer, Food & Retail (CFR) Group, says: “The Baylor Klein acquisition further expands our global CFR Group and specifically adds deeper expertise to the already robust HBPC sector
Foresight Group (Foresight), a private equity and infrastructure investment manager, has made a GBP1.7 million growth capital investment into Hexarad Group Limited (Hexarad), a high growth UK teleradiology company, as part of a GBP2.3 million funding round.
Hexarad is an early stage, high growth healthcare technology company, providing teleradiology services to NHS Trusts and UK private healthcare customers. Headquartered in London, the Company was founded in 2016 by a group of NHS consultant radiologists and differentiates through its clinical leadership and technology-led proposition.
Demand for radiology services is increasing rapidly, driven by factors including ageing population, growing prevalence of
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
