Managers
A fund managed by Odyssey Investment Partners (Odyssey) has acquired Applied Technical Services (ATS), a provider of high-quality testing, inspection, and calibration services, in partnership with Jim J Hills, the Company’s President, and the existing ATS management team.
Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
ATS, headquartered in Marietta, Georgia with more than 40 offices across the US, is a leading technical service platform that deploys a national network of experienced, highly technical professionals to provide mission-critical testing, inspection, certification, and compliance (TICC) services. Powered by innovative technology, significant operational scale and expertise, and deep knowledge of complex
UK mid-market private equity investor Livingbridge has agreed the sale of Broadstone, an independent provider of specialist pensions, trustee, and employee benefits solutions, to ICG.
Livingbridge’s investment was originally made from the Livingbridge 5 fund.
Founded within BDO Stoy Hayward in 1989, Broadstone offers coordinated, end-to-end pensions, trustee, and employee benefits solutions to SMEs and large corporates – helping them to navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape and evolving employee demands.
Livingbridge first invested in Broadstone in 2016, having identified the potential to build a mid-market leader of scale in the highly fragmented pensions and employee benefits sector.
Turquoise, a UK merchant bank specialising in energy, environment and efficiency, has announced its seventh deal for the Low Carbon Innovation Fund 2 (LCIF2), a GBP330,000 investment in mobility app company SKOOT RIDE.COM Ltd (SKOOT).
SKOOT was founded in 2019 to promote and facilitate lift sharing amongst friends and colleagues. Passengers share the costs of the journey, but as the driver does not make a profit, this ensures that the driver is not subject to the regulations governing taxi services. The passenger will pay between 10% and 30% of the cost of a traditional taxi.
SKOOT’s app went live on
Innovate Finance, an industry body representing UK FinTech, has released investment figures for the global FinTech sector in 2020 that reinforce the UK’s position as a global and European leader.
The UK FinTech sector has retained its role as the top-ranking investment destination in Europe, with USD4.1 billion venture capital and growth private equity invested across a total of 408 deals. This represents a YoY drop of 9 per cent – an expected shift given the global Covid-19 pandemic and the surrounding economic challenges. Globally, the UK ranks second only to the US in total capital raised.
Overall, global
Greenspring Associates, has successfully completed a continuation fund transaction for Giza V, a 2008 vintage venture-capital fund, managed by Giza Venture Capital (Giza).
The continuation fund, with around USD100 million in commitments, provides Giza with the opportunity to increase the value of the portfolio companies by providing additional time and capital for growth. The portfolio companies were transferred into the continuation fund with limited partners in Giza V having the option to cash-out or to roll-over into the continuation fund.
“As global venture investors in fund, direct and secondary opportunities, we have seen increasing volume in GP-led restructurings, both on
BV Investment Partners (BV), a middle-market private equity firm focused on the tech-enabled business services, software and IT services sectors, has invested in PixelMEDIA (Pixel), a digital commerce services firm dedicated to helping brands launch, manage, and grow their ecommerce business on Salesforce.
Co-founders Erik Dodier, Chief Executive Officer, and Thomas Obrey, Chief Technology Officer, will continue in their current roles and maintain a significant ownership interest in partnership with BV.
Pixel is a digital commerce services firm dedicated to helping brands launch, manage, and grow their ecommerce business on the Salesforce platform.
Pixel’s certified global team covers
Blue Horizon Ventures, a sustainable food system focused venture capital fund, has held the final close of its first flagship fund Blue Horizon Ventures I, well beyond its initial target size at EUR183 million.
The fund has attracted Limited Partners (LPs) around the world, ranging from private investors (numerous large single and multi-family offices) to corporates and institutional investors. Renowned investors include among others the European Investment Fund EIF, Wire Group’s Private Markets Funds, Givaudan, Group Bimbo, Sigma, B8Ventures, Korys/Colruyt Group. In total, more than 100 different investors from around 20 nationalities subscribed to the fund.
The mission of
New York-based Grafine Partners, established by former Riverstone Holdings’ executive Elizabeth Weymouth, is hoping to fill what it regards as a key gap in the market, by providing institutional investors with a dedicated direct investment platform; one that places emphasis on patient, creative and sophisticated capital and a way for large investors to look beyond the usual ‘2 & 20’ fee model charged by traditional commingled funds.
Weymouth, who founded Grafine Partners and acts as Managing Partner and Chair of the Investment Committee, has been in the investment world for 25 years, building up two substantial investment platforms; one at
Claret Capital Partners Limited (Claret) (formerly Harbert European Growth Capital), has held the first closing of its third fund, Fund III, which will continue to invest in innovative growth stage tech and life science businesses throughout Europe primarily to support organic growth and M&A.
Claret Capital Partners was formed through the MBO of Harbert European Growth Capital in 2020. Over the past seven years, the team behind Claret Capital has become one of the preeminent providers of growth debt to SMEs in Europe, investing in excess of half a billion euro.
The previous funds have backed over 120 European SMEs
BlackCurve, a pricing optimisation company, has closed a GBP1 million funding round, led by Chairman, Martin Fincham, with participation from Nauta Capital, The Cambridge Angels Network and other prominent Angels, members of the ScaleUp Group and then bolstered by a matching contribution from the UK Government’s Future Fund.
Founded in 2016, BlackCurve’s pricing optimisation platform helps retailers manage and optimise the price of every item they sell to achieve their business goals. This SaaS platform, powered by Artificial Intelligence, ingests data sources ranging from sales history and web shop transactions, through to competitor pricing and stock levels, enabling every retailer
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