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Rakuten Ventures has launched the Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund, a 10 billion yen (USD84 million) venture capital fund targeting investments in startups in Japan.
Building on successes in Israel, Asia Pacific and the USA with Rakuten Ventures 2013 Southeast Asia Fund and 2014 Global Fund, the new Rakuten Ventures Japan Fund aims to empower the expanding community of Japanese startups with advanced technology and business models.
The fund operations will be run out of Singapore by Managing Partner SaeMin Ahn and Investment Manager Hogil Doh.
“We are honored to have a chance to participate in the Japanese startup
Cloud technology specialist NewVoiceMedia has secured USD30 million in a new round of funding. New investor BGF Ventures joined existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Eden Ventures, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Salesforce Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV).
The new investment will accelerate NewVoiceMedia’s international growth plans, with particular emphasis on the North American market, driven by further expansion of its US-based sales, marketing and professional services delivery teams and alongside its ongoing commitment to enriching its product and platform capabilities.
NewVoiceMedia’s market-leading cloud customer contact platform integrates seamlessly with Salesforce to connect organisations with their customers worldwide, enabling
Secure Trust Bank Commercial Finance has backed venture capital investors Mission Capital with a GBP3 million facility to support the firm’s future acquisitions in the manufacturing sector.
Established in 2014, Mission Capital looks to invest in innovative manufacturing and distribution firms in the UK, helping them to achieve their growth potential. Mission is made up of a group of partners who each have a successful track record of buying and building businesses in this sector in the UK. With this in mind, the firm has an objective to build a diversified group of UK manufacturing and distribution businesses over the
LeapFrog Investments has acquired a majority stake in UT Life Insurance Company (UT Life), one of the key players in the life insurance sector in Ghana. This is LeapFrog’s third direct investment in Ghana, and second in the life insurance sector.
UT Life is a rapidly growing life insurer, with a significant market share in funeral and educational savings policies. It is focused on the mass market and seeks to reach over 1 million people by 2020. The Ghanaian market offers major opportunities for growth, as insurance penetration is below 2% of GDP.
UT Life was formerly controlled by
Corstone has held the closing of the Corstone Growth Strategy M&A Private Equity Fund, a KRW150 billion (USD124.5 million) fund managed primarily by Corstone Asia’s investment team located in Seoul, Korea.
The Fund’s mandate is to target M&A and growth equity investments in small to mid-sized companies domiciled in South Korea. Target companies may also be located outside of Korea, with the capability to support acquiring companies in the US. The Fund will seek companies in Corstone’s historically targeted industries. The Fund also has sidecar or parallel fund features to provide for increased investment.
The Fund’s cornerstone investors include
PE.Analyzer, a new FinTech platform from CEPRES, now calculates the beta risk of private equity markets for the first time.
By measuring individual beta of Private Equity investments to public markets, the platform calculates risk-adjusted alpha for specific strategies and sectors – something never before available for Private Equity investors and fund managers.
“With current Global Markets at their most volatile in years, beta risk outweighs alpha generation as an influencer of final investment outcomes,” says Dr Daniel Schmidt, CEP CEPRES. “Previous analysis of alpha assumed a beta correlation of 1 for Private Equity, which research proves is incorrect.
Sonovate, a UK-based Fintech recruitment contract finance provider, has raised GBP5 million in a Series A funding round led by Dawn Capital and supported by DN Capital, with a further GBP15 million in debt funding provided by Shawbrook Business Credit.
Richard Prime and Damon Chapple, former directors of a FTSE 250 recruitment agency, launched Sonovate to provide high-tech working capital solutions to UK recruitment companies. Unparalleled in the sector, Sonovate’s platform eliminates both the cashflow and administrative burden faced by recruitment companies working with contractors.
Sonovate CEO and co-founder Richard Prime, says: “Recruitment companies have always been early adopters
Private equity CFOs are facing wide-ranging reporting demands from regulators and investors in the years since the financial crisis, leading finance teams to search for better data management and technology solutions.
That’s according to Disruption: seismic shifts in the private equity industry, EY's 2016 global private equity fund and investor survey.
The third annual survey of 103 private equity funds and 88 investors, conducted in collaboration with Private Equity International, finds 47% of private equity funds have faced a regulatory audit or examination in the past two years, compared to 41% in 2014 and 28% in 2013. The increased regulatory
HighQ, a specialist in software-as-a-service collaboration and content management solutions, has completed of a USD50 million growth equity investment from One Peak Partners, Morgan Stanley Merchant Banking and Goldman Sachs Private Capital.
The investment will help HighQ expand its international footprint and support its product development initiatives, enabling it to further accelerate its growth trajectory.
HighQ’s team includes more than 180 employees globally with established operations in London, New York, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Sydney and Ahmedabad.
"This is a significant milestone in HighQ's history and the beginning of an exciting new era for the company", says Ajay Patel, CEO
Belcan, a supplier of engineering consultancy services and technical staffing solutions, is to acquire European-based East Kilbride Engineering Services (EKES), an engineering consultancy across a variety of disciplines and sectors.
Terms of the transaction, which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2016, have not been disclosed.
EKES, founded in 1996 by former Rolls-Royce aero engineers, provides engineering solutions and recruitment services in the UK and Europe to engineering firms and manufacturers in a variety of sectors, including aerospace, marine, nuclear energy, and oil and gas. Belcan is owned by AE Industrial Partners (AEI), a private equity investor
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