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Sixpoint Partners, a global investment bank serving the middle market, has closed the Huron Flex Equity Fund with USD142 million of total capital commitments.
The Huron Flex Fund, which is the sixth investment vehicle for Huron Capital Partners (Huron Capital) since 1999, easily surpassed its initial target of USD100 million after only seven months in the market. Similar to Huron Capital’s other funds, The Huron Flex Fund’s diversified investor base includes endowments, foundations, multi-manager funds, corporate pensions and family offices. The Huron Flex Fund received strong support from existing Huron Capital investors as well as a number of new LP
Gibraltar Business Capital has added two veteran speciality finance lenders to its sales team – Elijah Kaplan and Scott Simmons.
Located in New York, Kaplan is an experienced professional in middle market lending, private equity, and restructuring. He has over 16 years of experience in financing, acquiring, and advising middle-market businesses through leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, recapitalisations, and restructurings. He honed his collaborative approach to working with management teams and private equity sponsors while at Deloitte CRG, Hudson Capital Partners, Marathon Asset Management and Albion Investors.
Based in Dallas, Simmons joins Gibraltar with 25 years of experience in building relationships
Expel, a company that replaces what organisations spend on managed security service providers (MSSPs), announced it has secured USD20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Ariel Tseitlin, a partner at Scale Venture Partners, will join Expel’s board of directors. Scale joins Expel’s existing investors: Battery Ventures, Greycroft, Lightbank, NEA, Paladin Capital Group and Profile Capital Management – all of whom also participated. Including this round, Expel has secured a total of USD27.5 million in funding to date.
“Security is now a board-level concern.
The EQT Infrastructure III fund (EQT Infrastructure) has completed its majority stake investment in Spirit Communications. With the transaction complete, Spirit will be combined with Lumos, which was acquired in November 2017.
The combination of Spirit and Lumos creates a super-regional fibre network stretching from Pittsburgh to Atlanta, with the vast majority of revenue and fibre network concentrated in the high-growth markets of Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Together, Spirit and Lumos will operate a network of approximately 21,000 fibre route miles and well over one million total fibre strand miles. The combined business will have over 9,000 on-net
Cotton Creek Capital, a Texas-based lower middle market private equity firm, has added Blake Tilley to its investment team as an Associate.
Prior to joining Cotton Creek Capital, Tilley was a Financial Analyst in the Global Industrials Group at Robert W Baird & Co, a wealth management, capital market, private equity and asset management firm headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. During his tenure with Robert W Baird & Co, Tilley focused on mergers and acquisition transactions along with equity offerings across the industrial sector.
Tilley earned his Bachelors of Business Administration in Finance and Accounting from Texas Christian University’s Neeley
Global venture capital firm AXA Strategic Ventures is rebranding and will now be known as AXA Venture Partners.
AXA Venture Partners, a USD450million venture capital firm backed by AXA, has participated in 32 deals since 2016, making it the most active venture capital firm backed by an insurance company, according to Crunchbase. Recent investments have covered a wide range of areas, including cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, digital health, SaaS technology, insurtech/fintech.
The new positioning reflects the Company’s approach of establishing strong partnerships with its portfolio companies and other VC investors. Beyond capital, AXA Venture Partners acts as a conduit for
Audax Private Equity (Audax) has completed the sale of Wheel Pros to Clearlake Capital, a private equity firm based in Santa Monica, California.
Wheel Pros, headquartered in Denver, CO, is a leading designer, marketer, and distributor of branded aftermarket wheels, performance tires and accessories.
Geoffrey S Rehnert, Co-Chief Executive Officer, Audax Group, says: “Wheel Pros is a leader in the automotive aftermarket industry. The Wheel Pros team has demonstrated tremendous success in growing the business, and we wish both the management team and Clearlake Capital continued success.”
Jay Mitchell, Managing Director, Audax Private Equity, says: “Randy White, Jody
The Association of Investment Companies (AIC) has published the fundraising figure for the Venture Capital Trusts (VCTs) sector, which raised GBP728 million for the 2017/18 tax year, the second highest amount since the inception of VCTs and an increase of 34 per cent on last year’s figure (GBP542 million).
It is also the highest amount ever raised at the current level of 30 per cent upfront tax relief.
The highest VCT fundraising figure was in the 2005/6 tax year when the sector raised GBP779 million, when the initial tax relief on investments was 40 per cent.
VCT assets
Aksia, a specialist research and portfolio advisory firm for hedge fund, private credit, and institutional investors, has appointed Ilya Riskin as a Senior Analyst in the firm’s Investment Research Team in New York.
Riskin (pictured), had been at Barclays for over 12 years, most recently as a Vice President in the Portfolio Management Group, where he was a fundamental credit research generalist and portfolio manager of an extensive bank debt book.
At Aksia, Ilya’s investment and markets experience will serve as a complement to the event driven and credit investment due diligence effort. Patrick Adelsbach, Head of Credit Strategies,
The focal point of institutional investors has changed over time with respect to how operational due diligence (ODD) or the risk assessment of non-investment functions is applied to private equity and real estate GP’s and Investment managers.
Although a well-established process in hedge fund investing, it is still a relatively new discipline in the closed-ended space. Back in the 1990s, the shock waves that emanated from the implosion of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) sent hedge fund investors into a tailspin.
Terrified that if it could happen to LTCM then it could happen to anyone, institutions trained their sights on
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