Managers
By Alex Di Santo (pictured), group head of private equity at Crestbridge – Despite Covid, venture capital activity across the globe remained robust throughout 2020 and deal activity, thus far in 2021, suggests venture capital will continue to fly high this year.
Below we outline Covid winners, challenges and opportunities in ESG within the VC space and discuss what managers can do to thrive in this new financial environment.
The winners
• Healthcare and life sciences. Unsurprisingly, healthcare and life sciences have done particularly well. According to Rock Health, 2020 has seen more digital health funding than any other year
Mid-market private equity investor LDC, has backed the management buyout of data and network security specialist Phoenix Datacom.
The partnership with LDC will support the existing management team – led by Managing Director, John Carson – to expand Phoenix Datacom’s suite of hardware and software products and related services to help its enterprise customers further enhance their cyber-security. LDC’s backing will also help the team to explore complementary acquisitions.
Buckinghamshire-based Phoenix Datacom provides solutions and services to improve on-premise and cloud application performance and cyber-security for major UK organisations across a range of sectors. Established in 1984, it has a
Kester Capital, a primary buyout specialist, has successfully refinanced three of its portfolio companies following strong revenue and profit growth over the last 18 months.
Kester’s sector focus and track record has resulted in strong lender appetite for three of its portfolio companies: Avania, YouGarden and Frontier Medical.
The deals come following a busy start to the year for Kester which recently announced its investment in drug discovery business, Optibrium, as well as the expansion of its investment team with a run of new hires.
Avania is a leading, global full-service contract research organisation focused on the
Stephen Crystal, Founder of SCCG Management, has announced a partnership with King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based iGaming Marketing and Advertising firm, MediaTroopers.
Crystal, says: “This is a new and exciting time for iGaming in North America. Online sports betting and iGaming products are exploding across the US, backed by huge brands and equally large budgets. That same demand exists for digital marketing expertise in iGaming – knowledge put in context by the challenges experienced by veteran digital marketers in the online gaming space.
“These are challenging times that are rewarded by results, not just trying hard. The experience and expertise that
Hiro Capital, an entrepreneur-led venture capital fund focused on backing innovators in video games, the metaverse, esports and digital fitness, has invested in three international video game studios – Snowprint in Stockholm/Berlin, Double Loop Games in San Francisco and Happy Volcano in Belgium.
The trio join UK and US Games studios Flavourworks, Polyarc and Lightfox in the Hiro Capital portfolio, alongside specialists in the gamification of games streaming and digital fitness LIV.tv, Edgegap, FitXR and Nurvv.
Ian Livingstone, co-founding partner at Hiro Capital, says: “We are excited to begin 2021 by announcing Hiro’s investment in three amazing games studios, Snowprint,
UK-based neuromuscular medical device company, GyroGear Ltd has just concluded phase one of its seed round fundraise. The round was led by electronics manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group which invested GBP1 million (USD1.41 million) upfront.
Participants in GyroGear’s seed round include the UK Government Future Fund, Singapore venture builder Fidelium Group, and other established strategic investors and business leaders. Phase two of the seed round is ongoing and scheduled for completion in March 2021.
GyroGear is developing a wearable device to help individuals with hand tremors. The wearable reduces tremors, so they may perform their day-to-day activities. This also brings
The Chancellor should make green infrastructure projects eligible for the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) in the upcoming March Budget, says Growthdeck, a private equity investment firm.
Growthdeck believes that opening up EIS to green infrastructure projects again will help towards meeting the UK’s goal of bringing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. Investment into these projects will provide SMEs with a much-needed boost in capital and create more jobs, benefitting the overall UK economy.
In 2015, the Government decided to ban investments into energy generating activities through EIS, including investment into renewable energy infrastructure. This was designed
Growth capital investor VGC Partners has provided GBP150,000 funding to VozLab, the creator of a self-serve development platform for the next generation of flexible voice apps.
This is the first investment that VGC Partners has made from its Technology Seed Fund IV. VozLab is also the first start-up to join Amazon’s UK Alexa Incubator Programme, which provides technical and business mentorship support from the Amazon Alexa team.
Based in the UK and Uruguay, VozLab has created the world’s first proprietary self-serve voice experience platform, enabling brands in the FMCG sectors to develop, launch and manage their own voice apps.
Trestle Partners (Trestle), a New York-based private investment firm that specialises in partnering with pre-Series A enterprise software entrepreneurs and founders, has completed fundraising for its inaugural fund, Trestle Partners I, reaching the hard cap of USD30 million.
The Fund, which was raised over 12 months, will invest entirely in Software as a Service (SaaS) businesses that possess strong product-market fit, have demonstrated responsible growth patterns and service attractive and sustainable end markets with high-quality software solutions.
“The current investment environment continues to create unique opportunities for firms such as Trestle that possess extensive experience and expertise in enterprise software,”
Terminus, an account-based marketing platform, has raised USD90 million in a Series C round led by Boston-based Great Hill Partners, with participation from existing investors Atlanta Ventures, Edison Partners, and Hallett Capital to accelerate data products innovation, hiring and market expansion.
With the investment, Great Hill Partners’ Derek Schoettle and Chris Gaffney will join Terminus’ Board of Directors. Schoettle brings decades of data innovation experience from his time as chief executive of ZoomInfo (acquired by DiscoverOrg in 2019) and chief business officer of IBM’s Watson & Cloud platform. Gaffney, who co-founded Great Hill Partners in 1988, brings extensive software and
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