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ARQIS has advised Agile Robots on its Series A financing round. The eight-digit investment round was led by C-Ventures, a Hong Kong based venture capitalist for innovative companies founded by cultural entrepreneur Adrian Cheng and further included the existing financial investors such as GL Ventures (Hillhouse), Sequoia Capital China and Linear Venture Capital. ARQIS has been advising Agile Robots and its founders for the last two years and throughout the last four financing rounds. This included the establishment as a stock corporation as well as the set-up of subsidiaries for Agile Robots in Hong Kong and Beijing.
Upon completion of
It is unlikely that the full extent of mark-to-market valuations will be known until 30 June, when Q2’s financial reports are issued. And while this might cause investors to break out into a cold sweat, the advice being offered by investment consultants is, ‘Don’t make any knee-jerk decisions and keep investing’.
“What we learnt from the ’08 financial crisis is that it took time to for valuations to be written down by GPs – and we know that for Q1 2020 valuations, some GPs don’t re-value, they wait until the Q2 valuations so it will take at least a couple
Nick Burgess has joined Pillsbury’s Corporate & Securities practice in London as senior counsel. Burgess, who operates a significant cross-border M&A practice focused on Europe and emerging markets, was previously a partner with Jones Day.Leveraging his two decades of experience, Burgess represents a mix of private and public corporate and private equity sponsors on a wide range of matters—from acquisitions and follow-on investments to disposals, restructurings and equity investments—and spans the energy, metals and mining, financial services, technology, telecoms, pharmaceutical, infrastructure and retail industries. He also has significant experience in emerging markets, managing complicated multi-jurisdictional joint ventures and other transactions
Scoota, a specialist in automated omni-channel digital branding technology, has announced a GBP2 million round from Notion Capital, the Angel CoFund (ACF) and VentureFounders. The growth funding will be used for rapid US expansion plans for the latter part of 2020 and early 2021.
In the current climate this raise speaks to the strength of Scoota’s business model and technology, offering its clients a completely new approach to fraud-free, automated omni-channel digital branding, all through one single platform. The company, which is based in London and New York, is rapidly increasing its direct-client base alongside its swift expansion into the US
High Road Capital Partners’ portfolio company General Tools & Instruments (www.generaltools.com) has acquired Garden Weasel (www.gardenweasel.com), a provider of specialised lawn and garden tools, from Faultless Brands. The transaction marks General Tools’ second acquisition under High Road’s ownership, having acquired PacTool International in November 2017.
The acquisition comprises Garden Weasel’s assets, trademarks, patents, and related intellectual property, including the Garden Weasel, Garden Claw, and WeedPopper and other easy-to-use cultivators, weeders, edgers, nut gatherers and hand tools with distinctive red handles. Launched in the US in 1975, Garden Weasel products are sold primarily in hardware stores, farm and fleet stores, home
Adams Street Partners, a private markets investment management firm with more than USD41 billion of assets under management, has appointed Robin Murray and Dave Brett to the firm’s Executive Committee, effective 1 May , 2020. In addition, Murray will succeed Terry Gould as Head of Growth Equity Investments, who will remain an active member of Adams Street’s Growth Equity Team before transitioning into retirement from full-time work during 2021.
Murray joined the firm as a Partner on the Growth Equity Investment Team in 2008, and is based in Adams Street’s Menlo Park office where he focuses on the technology sector. Murray is a
SANNE, a provider of alternative asset and corporate business services, has completed the acquisition of long-term investment specialists Inbhear Fund Service and Inbhear Management Services.
Digital financial services company Alpian, incubated by the Swiss banking group REYL & Cie, has completed a Series A funding round worth CHF12.2 million.
EQT Ventures has led a USD12 million Series A funding round in Peanut, a newly launched social network for women.
Index Ventures and Female Founders Fund also participated in this round, bringing the company’s total funding to USD 21.8 million.
The fresh capital will be used to launch new communities beyond [the already existing] areas of fertility and motherhood, including a space for women living with menopause.
Lyle Fong, partner at EQT Ventures, will use his expertise in community-focused products to aid Peanut’s next stage of growth.
“Lyle’s unprecedented experience of building and scaling community-focused products will be vital as
Asia Pacific’s private market attracted USD117 billion in net capital inflow in 2019, led predominantly by private equity where fund raising topped USD94 billion according to McKinsey’s Private Markets Review 2020. This represented a 25 per cent reduction year-on-year, led principally by closed ended real estate, which closed 2019 with a modest USD13 billion in fundraising; down 39 per cent on 2018.
The big question for the region now, among global investment groups, is where strategic value opportunities might reside in light of the fall in market valuations caused by Covid-19. One only has to look at oil prices moving
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