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LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, has made a number of senior promotions across the firm as part of its commitment to invest GBP1.2billion in UK mid-market firms in the next three years.The promotions follow a period of significant success for the leading mid-market private equity investor, having already completed two investments and two exits in 2020. This builds on a strong performance in 2019 where LDC invested GBP365million to back 18 ambitious management teams, and generated a total of GBP330million total proceeds, despite challenging market conditions.
Head of New Business Andy Grove is promoted to a
Middle-market private equity firm HKW’s portfolio company, Xirgo Technologies (Xirgo), has acquired assets and technology of Palo Alto-based Owlcam. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.“We are excited about adding Owlcam’s technology to the Xirgo product portfolio and the immediate impact it’s going to bring to our enterprise customer base,” says Shawn Aleman, CEO of Xirgo. “Delivering AI camera technology with our existing vehicle telematics products was already part of Xirgo’s short-term road-map and strategic vision. The addition of Owlcam technology has allowed us to accelerate that vision, putting us significantly ahead of our original timelines.”
Owlcam’s
As governments impose travel bans, schools and museums close down, countries go into lockdown and London’s Trafalgar Square is eerily quiet, it’s safe to say that the global economy is in the eye of the storm.
Equity markets saw their worst day since the Black Monday crash in October 1987 yesterday, with UK and US equities down close to 10 per cent.
Many economists agree that recent developments will likely move the world into a global recession. According to wealth manager Kingswood, history would guide us to expect market declines no greater than the 25-30 per cent drop already seen
Culture Shift has secured a GBP1.35 million investment in a funding round led by Praetura Ventures, a VC firm which targets early stage businesses in high value sectors.
The investment in Culture Shift is Praetura Ventures’ fourth from its Praetura EIS 2020 Fund, which closed in January. Other recent investments include Patchwork, a rapidly growing healthtech start-up on a mission to solve the NHS staffing crisis, and SteamaCo, a technology provider to energy suppliers in emerging markets.
Praetura Ventures has raised more than GBP22 million since May 2019 to invest in early-stage businesses in the North and across the
Jensen Partners, an executive search and corporate advisory firm for the alternative investment management industry, was named “Best Recruitment Company for Investor Relations & Asset Raising” by the readers of Private Equity Wire, a leading source for PE news and features.
Paris-based start-up Akur8 has raised EUR8 million (USD8.9 million) in a Series A funding round from BlackFin Capital Partners and MTech Capital.
C5 Capital’s founder and managing partner, Andre Pienaar speaks with tangible passion when discussing the potential for investing in female entrepreneurs in the cybersecurity space. As one of the UK’s foremost cybersecurity VC investors, C5 Capital knows what to look for when assessing innovation in the sector. In Pienaar’s view “for the future success of the sector we have to diversify”.
“The cybersecurity sector is producing a significant number of dynamic female founders, which is a positive development,” he says. “They are building very successful businesses. This is an important theme of our latest fund, C5 Impact Partners LP: to
Xirgo Technologies a portfolio company of middle-market private equity firm HKW, has acquired assets and technology of Palo Alto-based Owlcam. Financial terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.“We are excited about adding Owlcam’s technology to the Xirgo product portfolio and the immediate impact it’s going to bring to our enterprise customer base,” says Shawn Aleman, CEO of Xirgo. “Delivering AI camera technology with our existing vehicle telematics products was already part of Xirgo’s short-term road-map and strategic vision. The addition of Owlcam technology has allowed us to accelerate that vision, putting us significantly ahead of our original timelines.”
Owlcam’s
Global law firm White & Case LLP today released the results of its Global M&A Sentiment Tracker, a global survey of 800 senior M&A executives in a wide variety of sectors. The survey was conducted in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America in the fourth quarter of 2019 (before the beginning of the coronavirus crisis).Dealmakers across the globe are optimistic about the outlook for M&A activity in the coming year, with 86 per cent of respondents saying they expect M&A activity to increase in their region in 2020.
That’s according to Global law firm White & Case’s Global M&A
LDC, the private equity arm of Lloyds Banking Group, has made a number of senior promotions as part of its intention to invest GBP1.2billion in UK mid-market firms in the next three years.
Head of new business Andy Grove is promoted to a newly formed role of chief investment officer and will be responsible for the firm’s overall investment activity, including supporting LDC’s portfolio through the focused provision of follow-on funding, according to the firm. Grove led LDC’s investments into Forest Holidays and Joules.
John Garner currently head of Yorkshire, North East & Scotland, is promoted to head of
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