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Private equity investments helped the Ontario Pension Plan (HOOP) chalk up an annual Gian of over 11 per cent last year, according to a report by WSJ Pro Private Equity.
As a result of that performance, the CAD114.4 billion Toronto-based pension scheme now has more assets than it owes in benefits with its funding ratio hitting 120 per cent.
Private equity was the best performing asset class in HOOP’s investment portfolio retiring almost 24 per cent for the year while public equities managed 20 per cent.
New York state lawmakers are being urged by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander to approve raising the ceiling on the amount of public pension fund assets that can be allocated to alternative investments by USD27 billion, according to a report by AlternativesWatch.
New York City has five public pension funds, which collectively have USD274 billion in assets, and Lander serves as investment advisor and custodian of assets to each.
The alternatives cap is currently set at 25 per cent but Lander would like it rated to 35 per cent arguing that private equity, private credit, and real assets, promise
Neuberger Berman is creating a ‘next generation’ SPAC platform having closed its latest fund – the Neuberger Berman Opportunistic Capital Solutions Fund – with USD1.95 billion in capital commitments following a private investment from CC Capital, according to a report by AlternativesWatch.
Neuberger Berman and CC Capital are to co-sponsor a series of SPACs with the fund entering into a USD200 million forward purchase agreement with each one. As well as scaled capital, the CC Neuberger SPAC structure, offers companies access to up to USD300 million in backstop capital, which Neuberger Berman says makes deals more likely to reach closure.
Multi award-winning manufacturer, Evolution Aqua, has announced a GBP12 million investment from the UK and Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, BGF.
Wigan-headquartered Evolution Aqua is a designer, manufacturer and supplier of a wide range of water filtration products and associated equipment, primarily focused on the aquatics industry for both indoor and outdoor fish care.
The funding will allow the business to capitalise on ambitious growth opportunities in core markets and drive international expansion. The significant minority investment will also enable the existing management team, led by CEO and founder, Nick Jackson, to expand on application of Evolution Aqua’s
YZR, a French start-up that uses AI to normalise data, has raised USD12 million in a Series A round co-led by Nauta Capital and Orange Ventures.
Supported by 50 Partners for two years and winner of the Galion Booster award in 2020, the next step in YZR’s expansion plans is to be a dominant player in the US markets.
YZR has created a no-code, plug-and-play, data preparation platform that makes it easier, better, and faster to normalise and prepare data for downstream ingestion. Their AI-powered standardisation, labelling, and context-understanding software has in-depth sector specific semantic knowledge to quickly enable
NIO Capital, a Chinese investment firm focused on decarbonisation and digitalisation, has closed its flagship fund, Eve ONE Fund II at approximately USD400 million.
The fund was oversubscribed and quickly surpassed its original target fund size and hard cap. Notably, this Fund has nearly doubled the capital commitments of its predecessor fund, NIO Capital Eve ONE Fund, which held its final closing in 2019. With its comprehensive platform of strategies, NIO Capital supports emerging founders and innovative technologies across the company life cycle.
Despite various fundraising limitations and challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Fund enjoyed strong support from
Prudential Financial, in partnership with LeapFrog Investments Group (LeapFrog Investments), is to acquire a strategic minority interest in Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, a provider of financial advice, retirement, investment, and holistic wealth management services in South Africa.
The transaction builds upon Prudential Financial’s partnership with LeapFrog Investments to access high-growth financial services markets in Africa and deliver essential financial tools to emerging consumers. Since 2016, Prudential Financial and LeapFrog Investments have invested in high-quality market leaders across the African continent, including Enterprise Group in Ghana and ICEA LION in Kenya.
Under the terms of the transaction, Prudential Financial,
Triumvira Immunologics (Triumvira), a clinical-stage company developing novel, targeted autologous and allogeneic T cell therapeutics that co-opt the natural biology of T cells to treat patients with solid tumours, has completed an extension of its Series A financing, bringing the total round to approximately USD100 million.
The Series A extension featured new investors, including significant participation from B Capital Group, along with ATEM Capital, the Myeloma Investment Fund, the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation’s venture philanthropy subsidiary, and others, joined by significant participation from existing investors, Leaps by Bayer, the impact investment unit of Bayer AG, and Northpond Ventures.
The proceeds
Wisedocs, a machine learning software-as-a-service for medical record processing closes has closed a CAD4.1 million oversubscribed Seed financing round led by Ripple Ventures.
Greensky Capital, and angel investors including George A Papayiannis of Vena Solutions, and startup veteran, Tim Lett also particpated in the round.
Wisedocs’ software relies on proprietary machine learning models using Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) to read and analyse various documents involved in a medical record review.
InvestaX, a MAS-licnsed (Monetary Authority of Singapore) digital securities platform, has secured investment from new strategic investors including Coinbase Ventures, Gate Ventures, Token Bay Capital, Sustainability Exchange Group (SEG), Global Blockchain Ventures, Startup-O, JST Capital, Baksh Capital, Thakral Corporation Ltd, Woodside Holdings Investment Management, and Balaji Srinivasan, for its Series A round.
InvestaX builds key infrastructure connecting Centralised Finance (CeFi) and Decentralised Finance (DeFi) so investors can buy, sell, trade, borrow or lend private market assets, instantly, 24×7, across the world.
According to industry data provider Preqin, alternative investments under management (AUM) across all asset classes for the period ending
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