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Fenox Venture Capital has invested in Jibo – the World’s First Social Robot. With this investment, Jibo plans to expand its global reach and further develop Jibo’s skills.
Fenox VC’s strategic investment will help Jibo bring its “social robot” to more households across the globe. Through Fenox VC, Jibo has partnered with Sega Sammy Holdings and CAC Holdings who will help the company expand its sales and marketing to key regions globally.
“These partnerships will bring great innovation not only to Japan but also around the world,” says Anis Uzzaman, General Partner at Fenox Venture Capital. “Fenox VC will
A new investment company has been formed in the UK to provide businesses with an alternative form of growth capital. Draper Oakwood Royalty Capital is to make investments in growth companies, in exchange for a share in future revenues.
Draper Oakwood calls their investment an ‘R Round’ (Royalty Round). Royalty-based finance is used extensively in many industries, including oil & gas, healthcare, and mining. Draper Oakwood now wants to make this type of capital available to businesses across other industries.
The advantage of the R Round is that entrepreneurs don't have to give up any equity or control in
Baird is to acquire Chautauqua Capital Management, a global investment manager based in Boulder, Colorado. The deal will enable Chautauqua Capital to focus on the performance of the firm’s global and international investment strategies while Baird provides the back office services and support for Chautauqua Capital clients.
The transaction is expected to close in early 2016.
Chautauqua Capital’s globally experienced investment team is led by Chief Investment Officer Brian Beitner, CFA. Beitner is a veteran investor who was previously a senior portfolio manager of Trust Company of the West’s Concentrated Core Equities portfolio management team, which he joined in
HIG Europe, the European arm of global private equity firm HIG Capital, has completed an investment in the International School of Europe (ISE), a group of K-12 international day schools in Italy.
ISE was founded in 1957 by the Formiga family and has schools in Milan, Modena, Monza and Siena. The group offers the International Baccalaureate (“IB”) curriculum to approximately 1,500 pupils representing over 60 nationalities.
HIG is partnering with Paolo and Franco Formiga who will retain an ownership stake in the group and continue to lead the Italian schools. The acquisition of ISE marks HIG’s first investment in
In this extract from November’s Preqin Hedge Fund Spotlight, Alastair Hannah takes a detailed look at CTA launches, different trading methodologies, strategies and markets traded, as well as providing an outlook for the rest of the year.
CTA launches
Fifty CTAs have launched in the first nine months of 2015 to 30 September (Fig 1). Although the number of funds launched this year is likely to grow as managers bring new funds to market in the final quarter, and also due to more data becoming available, 2015 looks set for the fewest CTA launches since 2006. Similarly, the proportion
LPEQ, the international association of listed private equity companies, has appointed Douwe Cosijn to succeed Andrea Lowe as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), with effect from 4 January 2016.
Lowe has chosen to step down as CEO of LPEQ early in the New Year, following ten years at the association’s helm. Andrea founded LPEQ in 2006 with Ian Armitage, the former CEO of HgCapital.
Tim Spence, chairman of LPEQ’s board and Finance Director at Graphite Capital, says: “On behalf of the board and the whole membership, I would like to express our thanks to Andrea for her enormous contribution and
In a further sign of economic optimism, well over half (58 per cent) of UK small to medium-sized firms (SMEs) plan to enter new markets in the next two years with the manufacturing sector leading the way, according to a new study by Albion Ventures.
Evidence of an export-led recovery is provided by the fact that one-in-three (34 per cent) SMEs are looking to break into new markets overseas of which 19 per cent are casting outside the EU and 15 per cent within the single market. This is higher than the 30 per cent targeting untapped domestic markets. A
Sport-Tiedje is to acquire Powerhouse Fitness,the trading name of Laidir Leisure Ltd, for an undisclosed sum. Upon completion of the acquisition, the combined company is estimated to be valued around GBP63m and will offer the biggest online range of products to the UK market with over 6,000 fitness related products.
Christian Grau, CEO of Sport-Tiedje Group, says: “We are excited to acquire Powerhouse fitness which is a strong player in the UK fitness market. Sport-Tiedje Group is Europe’s number one in home fitness and we have a clear international expansion strategy with the focus to further strengthen our position and
Europe-focused infrastructure funds have continued their strong fundraising in 2015, with 12 funds reaching a final close raising an aggregate EUR9.4 billion in investor commitments. This total follows the EUR9.6 billion raised in 2014, and
approaches the EUR10.5 billion raised by funds closed in 2013. This level of fundraising compares to 2007/8, when Europe-focused infrastructure funds raised EUR11.7 billion and EUR10.1 billion respectively.
Although it has seen several consecutive years of strong fundraising, the infrastructure industry seems to be following the trend seen in other alternative asset classes, as more capital is concentrated among fewer investment managers. The 12
The number of ‘high risk companies’ in the UK has shrunk massively. The new Graydon Risk Barometer shows that in 2007, just before the financial crisis, 16.23 per cent of the 1.7 million active UK companies were so unhealthy financially that they caused a serious business risk.
Now, in 2015, this number has decreased to 9.59 per cent. The reason for this spectacular decrease is that the economic crisis filtered out a lot of the unhealthy companies. Some remain though, hidden by low interest rates.
When the financial crisis was at its peak, in 2008, the number of unhealthy
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