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Drug discovery and development company, Blueberry Therapeutics, has secured a GBP3.6 million extension to its previously successful GBP10.8 million Series B fundraising.
Japanese investor, Medical Incubator Japan (MIJ), and a private syndicate of US Board Certified Dermatologists – led by Dr Omar Ibrahimi of the Connecticut Skin Institute – have invested GBP3.1 million and GBP500k, respectively.
Blueberry Therapeutics specialises in dermatology-focused drug discovery and development, working in the field of nano-medicines for difficult to treat diseases of the skin and nail, including fungal nail infections, athlete’s foot, and acne.
Funding will be put towards the development of BB2603;
Private Equity Wire’s Technology Summit continued on Thursday, where LPs and GPs explored themes around digitisation and how the adoption of new tech is shaping private equity.
Private markets solutions specialist the StepStone Group has become an Alliance Partner of The ID Register, which offers investors streamlined subscription, KYC and FATCA-CRS services that meet high global standards.
Approved investors can subscribe into new private markets funds without having to repeatedly provide their subscription materials and KYC information.
As an independent hub, The ID Register is trusted by over 25,000 investors and 270 clients as the onboarding authority across the private markets and beyond. Recently regulated in Guernsey, The ID Register is a compelling and efficient solution for all private market participants:
• Investors are approved once in
Nordea Asset Management (NAM) – a specialist in sustainable and responsible investing – has received an allocation in excess of USD550 million into its Emerging STARS Bond strategy.
The investment came from Danish pension provider Velliv.
Nordea’s Emerging STARS Bond strategy is an actively managed emerging market debt portfolio, which primarily invests in hard currency sovereigns. It avoids countries with poor ESG profiles, which helps to protect against financially-material ESG risks.
NAM, which manages EUR254 billion and forms part of the largest financial services group in the Nordic region, has been a pioneer in the responsible investment space and
Onecom has acquired its closest rival, Olive Communications, in a move which creates one of the largest business-to-business mobile, fixed-line and cloud specialists in the UK.
Together, Onecom and Olive will provide services to more than 500,000 corporate and business end users this year, generating combined annual turnover of more than GBP140 million.
The acquisition was supported with follow-on funding from mid-market private equity firm LDC, which invested in Onecom in a GBP100 million deal in July 2019 to fuel the Hampshire-based business’s ambitious three-year growth strategy. Growth capital investor BGF, which invested GBP10 million into Olive in 2016, has
Kraken Digital Asset Exchange has backed the newly launched Kraken Ventures, an independent investment fund targeting early stage companies and protocols across the crypto and fintech ecosystem.
The fund will invest in the technologies powering the next wave of crypto and fintech innovation and provide entrepreneurs with the financial resources and industry expertise needed to build and scale their business.
Kraken Ventures will focus on areas including fintech, crypto companies & protocols, decentralised finance (DeFi) as well as enabling technologies such as AI, Machine and Deep Learning, Reg Tech, and cybersecurity. Kraken Ventures offers the best of both worlds in
Genstar Capital, a private equity firm focused on investments in targeted segments of the financial services, healthcare, industrials, and software industries, has promoted David Graham to Managing Director, Capital Markets.
In this role, Graham will continue to lead Genstar Capital’s debt financing activities for both new and existing investments and manage the firm’s financing relationships.
Ryan Clark, President and Managing Director at Genstar, says: “Dave has extensive experience across a spectrum of debt products and has been instrumental in optimising the debt financing for all of our investments since joining Genstar. Importantly, he has built strong relationships with
Focus Group, a UK provider of business communications and technology solutions, has completed the acquisition of swcomms.
Focus Group has been looking to expand its portfolio of businesses again and swcomms was a perfect fit to accelerate its growth in the South West of the UK. With its expansion of data centre technologies, just one of the few located in this region this creates vast opportunities for Focus Group and further investments for the future.
The company will continue to operate under its brand name. The existing management team and employees will continue to lead and drive the business forward
Bunker Hill Capital, a Boston-based private equity investor in lower middle market companies, has sold Taos Mountain (Taos), a San Jose-based multi-cloud consulting firm, to IBM.
Bunker Hill Capital acquired Taos in August 2015 and was joined in the transaction with equity, senior debt and subordinated debt financing from Ric Urrutia, Abacus Finance Group, GMB Capital Partners and Brookside Mezzanine Partners.
“From the day we closed, we have had a great working relationship with the Taos team,” says Rufus Clark, a Managing Partner at Bunker Hill Capital. “Ric Urrutia, founder of Taos, was a true partner from day one
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