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Benhamou Global Ventures (BGV), an early-stage venture capital firm, has completed two more exits from BGV II, which first invested in 2014.
Zentri, a BGV II seed investment, was acquired by Silicon Labs.
Grid Dynamics, another early BGV II investment was acquired by Teamsun through its Hong Kong subsidiary Automated Systems.
"These two exits showcase our fund's investment strategy when investing in early stage enterprise IT," says Anik Bose, general partner at Benhamou Global Ventures. "BGV's cross border innovation combined with the partnership's deep company building experience and ecosystem relationships continue to deliver favourable outcomes for each portfolio
Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm, has sold its portfolio company Abila to Community Brands.
Accel-KKR acquired Abila in 2013 when the business, which provides software and services to associations, non-profit organisations and governmental entities, was spun-off from UK-based The Sage Group.
Following its initial investment in 2013, Accel-KKR rebranded the company, augmented the management team, and invested to build the infrastructure to position the company for significant organic growth and strategic consolidation.
During the past four years, Abila grew its revenues threefold, integrated three acquisitions to expand its product offerings in the non-profit and association sector, and
Foresight has invested GBP2.15 million from Foresight VCT into Fresh Relevance Limited (FRL), a marketing technology platform for eCommerce businesses.
Fresh Relevance is a SaaS email marketing and web personalisation platform providing online retailers with personalised customer experiences and real-time marketing tools across desktop and mobile.
Key features of the platform include triggered emails, web personalisation and real-time behavioural marketing, all of which aim to replicate the personalised experience familiar across market leading eCommerce businesses.
Based in Southampton, Fresh Relevance was founded by Mike Austin, Pete Austin and Eddy Swindell, ex-employees of former Foresight private equity portfolio company
Small Pharma, a London-based pharmaceutical startup, has raised GBP830,000, supplemented by a GBP140,000 grant from Innovate UK, to support the development of a rapid-acting drug for patients experiencing severe depression.
The round was led by Chris Torrance, co-founder of Horizon Discovery and PhoreMost, with the Angel CoFund, pharma sector experts and investors Steve Harris, David Ebsworth and Peter Keen, and Secret Escapes co-founder Tom Valentine, also participating.
The investors were joined by 63 additional angels, following a campaign on SyndicateRoom, an angel investing platform.
Torrance has joined the board of Small Pharma, alongside Harris who has sat on
Meniga, a provider of digital banking technology for banks, has raised EUR7.5 million in a funding round led by Nordic venture capital investor Industrifonden.
Other participants in the round include current investors Velocity Capital, Frumtak Ventures and Kjolfesta.
Meniga’s digital banking platform helps banks use personal finance data to enrich their online and mobile customer experiences. Having pioneered white-label Personal Finance Management (PFM) in 2009, Meniga has since expanded its product offering to include data-driven card-linked offers, personalisation and other user-centric services designed to make online and mobile banking more engaging and useful.
The funding will be used
For newly emerging investment firms or long-standing established ones, the choice to adopt a cloud-based architecture is becoming an easy one. Few firms have a business model where an in-house Comm. Room makes strategic or economic sense. And even for those who have the means to do so, managing and maintaining all levels of IT on-premise may not always make the most business sense.
Whether it’s the entirety of your technology environment or a few select applications, most firms find that it’s worth considering a cloud platform to leverage a predictable, scalable and feature-rich infrastructure. But when is the right
HarbourVest Partners, a global private markets asset manager, has held the final closes of its first mezzanine-focused co-investment fund at USD375 million and its third real assets fund at USD366 million.
“Specialised programmes such as our mezzanine and real assets funds demonstrate our continued emphasis on offering solutions that help our clients invest in niche strategies and markets that are difficult to access,” says John Toomey, managing director, HarbourVest.
“HarbourVest’s growth in real assets and expansion into private credit further broadens the reach of our solutions and our ability to meet and anticipate client needs. We are particularly proud
JLT Specialty, the insurance broker and risk consultant, saw a 60 per cent increase in the number of insured deals during 2016 compared to 2015 globally.
This type of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) insurance, also known as warranty and indemnity (W&I) insurance – of which the real estate and private equity sector remain the key beneficiaries of – is designed to pay out if a buyer discovers the business bought is not what the seller advised it would be.
In its annual M&A Insurance Index report, JLT found that the average limit of insurance (as a percentage of the
Saffery Champness has promoted four staff members to partner.
Stephen Bristow joined the firm from RSM Tenon in 2012 as the head of business development for Saffery Champness’ film & television unit.
Specialising in providing strategic policy advice to global media companies and their leaders, Bristow has been involved in the policy development of independent British film and television for 15 years, including helping drive the successful lobby to secure High-End TV Tax Relief. Bristow was given a Production Guild Award for his outstanding contribution to the development and sustainability of the UK film and TV industry in 2014.
Fresenius Medical Care, a provider of dialysis products and services, has acquired a 70 per cent equity interest in Kunming Wuhua Health Hospital (Wuhua Hospital) in China, specialised in chronic-disease management and haemodialysis (HD).
The acquisition was officially completed on 31 March 2017. This marks Fresenius Medical Care's first joint venture (JV) hospital in China, with the aim of providing high-standard renal-care services and chronic-disease management to local community.
There are 900,000 people living in Wuhua district and 9.8 million residents in Kunming City. Wuhua Hospital is a private Grade II hospital located in Wuhua district in the center of
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