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Finnish venture capital firm Superhero Capital has announced the first close of its second fund at EUR30 miollion. The fund will make seed investments in Finland and the Baltics and aims to invest in 25 startups over the next four years. The fund will remain open for new investors until the end of 2020.   The fund targets startups that create competitive advantages by refining data into insight. Superhero refers to startups that fit the bill as being ‘insight-driven’.   “There has been a lot of talk about data being the new oil. But how much is data really worth before
Chicago-based private equity firm Kinzie Capital Partners (Kinzie), through an affiliated entity, has acquired Chelsea Lighting NYC (Chelsea).The transaction was completed in partnership with the Company’s management, including Thomas Ike, Brian Horigan and Eric Martin, who will maintain significant ownership interest in Chelsea and will continue to hold key management roles at the Company, with Ike serving as CEO, Horigan as COO and CFO and Martin as the General Counsel and CAO.   Founded in 1994, Chelsea is currently the largest independent lighting and lighting controls distributor serving the New York City market where it supplies the real estate, design
Levine Leichtman Capital Partners (LLCP), a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, has partnered with management to acquire Tropical Smoothie Cafe. Tropical Smoothie Cafe is a leading franchisor of fast casual cafes with over 870 units across 44 states. The Company inspires a healthier lifestyle by serving better-for-you smoothies, wraps, sandwiches, and flatbreads across multiple dayparts. Tropical Smoothie Cafe was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Atlanta, GA. The Company will continue to be run by the existing executive team led by CEO Charles Watson. According to Matthew Frankel, Managing Partner of LLCP, “We are excited to partner with Charles and
Rodrigo Tavares, Granito Group
By Rodrigo Tavares, founder and president of the Granito Group – With fewer regulatory requirements compared with listed equity, the global USD4 trillion private equity market is lagging behind other asset classes when it comes to the adoption of ESG strategies. 
Renatus Capital Partners, an investor in Irish SMEs, has agreed to make a significant minority investment in CRS Mobile Cold Storage to support the business’s growth plans.First founded in 1992, CRS is today led by brothers John Tyrrell (Managing Director) and Patrick Tyrrell (Technical Director). The business is a market leader in the provision of modular temperature-controlled storage solutions to the food and pharmaceutical sectors. From its headquarters in Co. Meath, it provides solutions to blue-chip clients across Ireland, the UK and mainland Europe.   Former Suretank CEO John Fitzgerald is joining the board as non-executive Chairman and is investing
AppyWay, a kerbside management and smart parking technology firm, has launched a GBP20 million Series B funding round, which will be used to support organic growth of the platform, strategic acquisitions, further technological investment and international scalability.AppyWay is helping to difitalise and integrate what is a highly fragmented, but high potential, market for mobility. In the UK, the government has invested well over £200 million into connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) research and development since 2014, as well as several billion pounds into infrastructure investment for electric vehicles. In the UK, the mobility market is already valued in the billions
Mid-market private equity investor LDC has invested more than GBP 17million into Beekman Associates, a developer and provider of the data-driven marketing procurement platform RightSpend. The deal will help the management team to drive organic growth, further develop its software as a service (SaaS) offering and continue to expand into new international markets. Headquartered in London and with a second office in New York, Beekman Associates and its industry-leading software platform RightSpend supports global brands in the assessment of their marketing activity in real time, to help save and optimise marketing spend and manage agency relationships more effectively. The business has
Faegre Drinker has advised EPAM Systems, a provider of digital platform engineering and software development services, on its acquisition of Ricston Ltd, expanding EPAM’s global Application Programming Interface (API) practice and salesforce capabilities. This was the second international acquisition on which Faegre Drinker’s London office has advised EPAM.  Ricston, which has offices in the UK, Malta and Spain, provides a variety of services across the full cycle of digital transformation, including legacy modernization, software integration, Open API and Centre for Enablement (C4E). They also provide training and operations for the Anypoint Platformâ„¢ as well as a dedicated team that builds connectors.
Funds advised by Warburg Pincus, have reached an agreement to invest in Infoniqa, a supplier of HR software and service solutions in DACH countries, alongside existing investors Elvaston and Infoniqa management.Infoniqa, founded in 1988 in Austria, is a software and services solutions specialist across all areas of administrative and strategic human resources such as personnel management, payroll accounting, time management and outsourcing.   The business provides services to over 3,500 corporate customers, managing over two million pay slips. Infoniqa also offers payroll outsourcing services, software hosting (SaaS), consulting and training.  
Europe from space
By Sergey Sheshuryak, Adams Street Partners – To gain a perspective on the private equity market in Europe in the second half of 2020, we start by looking back to the seemingly distant past of 2019 – before pandemic-related shutdowns, social distancing, central bank stimulus plans, and Zoom meetings.

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