Allocations
Middle-market private equity firm HKW’s portfolio company, Xirgo Technologies (Xirgo), has acquired assets and technology of Palo Alto-based Owlcam. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.“We are excited about adding Owlcam’s technology to the Xirgo product portfolio and the immediate impact it’s going to bring to our enterprise customer base,” says Shawn Aleman, CEO of Xirgo. “Delivering AI camera technology with our existing vehicle telematics products was already part of Xirgo’s short-term road-map and strategic vision. The addition of Owlcam technology has allowed us to accelerate that vision, putting us significantly ahead of our original timelines.”
Owlcam’s
As governments impose travel bans, schools and museums close down, countries go into lockdown and London’s Trafalgar Square is eerily quiet, it’s safe to say that the global economy is in the eye of the storm.
Equity markets saw their worst day since the Black Monday crash in October 1987 yesterday, with UK and US equities down close to 10 per cent.
Many economists agree that recent developments will likely move the world into a global recession. According to wealth manager Kingswood, history would guide us to expect market declines no greater than the 25-30 per cent drop already seen
Culture Shift has secured a GBP1.35 million investment in a funding round led by Praetura Ventures, a VC firm which targets early stage businesses in high value sectors.
The investment in Culture Shift is Praetura Ventures’ fourth from its Praetura EIS 2020 Fund, which closed in January. Other recent investments include Patchwork, a rapidly growing healthtech start-up on a mission to solve the NHS staffing crisis, and SteamaCo, a technology provider to energy suppliers in emerging markets.
Praetura Ventures has raised more than GBP22 million since May 2019 to invest in early-stage businesses in the North and across the
Paris-based start-up Akur8 has raised EUR8 million (USD8.9 million) in a Series A funding round from BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital.
Xirgo Technologies a portfolio company of middle-market private equity firm HKW, has acquired assets and technology of Palo Alto-based Owlcam. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.“We are excited about adding Owlcam’s technology to the Xirgo product portfolio and the immediate impact it’s going to bring to our enterprise customer base,” says Shawn Aleman, CEO of Xirgo. “Delivering AI camera technology with our existing vehicle telematics products was already part of Xirgo’s short-term road-map and strategic vision. The addition of Owlcam technology has allowed us to accelerate that vision, putting us significantly ahead of our original timelines.”
Owlcam’s
Global law firm White & Case LLP today released the results of its Global M&A Sentiment Tracker, a global survey of 800 senior M&A executives in a wide variety of sectors. The survey was conducted in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America in the fourth quarter of 2019 (before the beginning of the coronavirus crisis).Dealmakers across the globe are optimistic about the outlook for M&A activity in the coming year, with 86 per cent of respondents saying they expect M&A activity to increase in their region in 2020.
That’s according to Global law firm White & Case’s Global M&A
Palatine-backed TTC Group has completed the bolt-on acquisition of licence checking and document verification business Licence Bureau.The strategic acquisition sees TTC Group broaden its corporate fleet customer base and further strengthen its compliance capability within its proprietary technology platform, Continuum.
Founded in 2003, Licence Bureau provides licence checking and document verification services for SMEs and large corporates. The company has one of the UK’s largest corporate fleet client bases, with more than 1,400 companies utilising its services, including over 20 per cent of FTSE 100 companies. From its base in Hemel Hempstead, the company has completed more than 4
As WHO classed the Coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic yesterday and governments are taking increasingly significant steps to ensure that businesses can weather the storm, private equity firms are holding back on M&A for the time being, according to Eight Advisory.
As the UK Government is about to step up its response and move from “contain” to “delay” phase, while the Chancellor announces measures for how small businesses can cope with the negative effects of Covid-19, the full impact of the outbreak on the private equity industry remains to be seen.
“Businesses that were presenting attractive medium and long term
LSP, a life sciences investor in Europe, has held its final close of LSP 6 at the USD600 million hard cap. This is the largest fund ever raised in Europe focused on life sciences ventures. LSP currently has USD1.1 billion of capital to invest across LSP 6, the LSP Health Economics Fund and LSP’s public fund and mandates.
LSP 6 will, like its predecessor funds, invest in 15-18, predominantly European private companies developing new medications or medical technologies, who turn cutting-edge scientific innovations into real-world healthcare solutions.
Due to strong investor demand LSP was able to raise USDF600 million, significantly more
Varagon Capital Partners (Varagon) is serving as Administrative Agent, Joint Lead Arranger and Joint Bookrunner on a senior secured credit facility to support the acquisition of ALC Schools, by affiliates of Palladium Equity Partners (Palladium).ALC offers alternative student transportation solutions for a variety of student populations, including special education, homeless, foster and other in-need students. ALC’s transportation solutions ease school districts’ transportation challenges by providing an exceptional level of safety and consistency for their most vulnerable students. Each day, ALC coordinates transportation for hundreds of districts and thousands of students across the country.
ALC has 23 field offices across the
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
