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AXA has launched AXA Strategic Ventures, a EUR200 million venture capital fund dedicated to emerging strategic innovations in insurance, asset management, financial technology and healthcare services.
AXA Strategic Ventures will have on-the-ground coverage of investment opportunities worldwide. In the US, AXA Strategic Ventures will have offices in San Francisco and New York.
“AXA will share its global reach and expertise to serve as an accelerator for start-up companies that bring new, customer-focused ideas to insurance and financial services,” says Anders Malmstrom, chief financial officer of AXA US and a member of the Strategy Committee of AXA Strategic Ventures. “We will
Monroe Capital has acted as sole lead arranger and administrative agent on the funding of a USD27 million senior credit facility to provide growth capital to The Sandbox Group (Sandbox).
Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, The Sandbox Group, has embarked upon building an international agency group to meet an identified gap in its industry. Sandbox is an integrated marketing communications agency specialising in the healthcare, agriculture, and financial services industries.
At the end of 2014, Preqin conducted surveys with hedge fund managers, investors and alternatives investment consultants around the world to ascertain their views on the hedge fund industry over the past year and their outlook for the year ahead. Selina Sy looks at the upcoming trends and developments these industry professionals have identified for hedge funds in 2015.
Institutional investor capital will continue to flow into the hedge fund industry in 2015
Hedge fund managers forecast that industry assets under management (AUM) are set to increase this year, and surpass the figure of $3.02tn reported in December 2014. Indeed,
Online investment platform MicroVentures has created a "500 Startups Fund" open to accredited investors.
The Fund provides investors access to startups fostered by the well-known, Mountain View based, accelerator by way of a unique position in three 500 Startups' Funds for as little as USD10,000. Investors not utilising the MicroVentures' platform would need to invest at least USD400,000 to create a similar diversified portfolio.
As of January 2015, MicroVentures and its 25,000 global investors have deployed over USD60MM to approximately 100 companies. With offices in Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA, the FINRA registered platform provides exclusive access to curated
LeapFrog Investments has invested USD25 million in fintech company AFB Mauritius Ltd (afb).
Partnering with major mobile operators and over 400 retailers including Woolworths and Naivas, afb has extended its reach to over a million people in sub-Saharan Africa. afb currently has operations in four countries, including Kenya, Zambia and Ghana with rapid expansion into adjacent geographies planned. afb also offers branded store cards for the English Premier League giants Manchester United and Chelsea.
Across Sub-Saharan Africa, consumer finance from formal banking channels is almost non-existent: Insurance is massively underpenetrated, and can be as low as 1% of the
Hamburg-based firm Detlev Louis Motorrad-Vertriebs GmbH has been sold to US holding company Berkshire Hathaway, which is headed by Warren Buffett.
The transaction is currently awaiting approval from the competition authorities.
A team from CMS in Germany led by lead partner Dr Thomas J Meyer advised the executor, Dr Peter Hertel of Hamburg law firm Krohn, on all legal aspects of the sale. Dr Hertel was acting on behalf of Ute Louis, the widow of company founder Detlev Louis, who died in 2012. The estate of Detlev Louis was under the executorship of Dr Hertel when the sale took place.
Shark Punch has finalised a USD1.2 million seed funding round led by Supercell investor London Venture Partners (LVP) and DN Capital.
In addition, the company is launching its new game discovery platform: Playfield.io.
Playfield is a social discovery and community platform for games. Playfield helps players find games they care about, and allows developers to connect directly with their gamer communities.
”We started the company initially to develop a new game called The Masterplan, but after many discussions with other game developers, we realized that discovery is a massive problem for both developers and players. The question is rarely
Pereg Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm that operates in the United States and Israel, has completed initial fund raising for Pereg Ventures Fund I.
The firm primarily provides Series A and B financing to ventures delivering innovative market intelligence and analytics solutions for consumer-driven corporations.
"We are delighted to officially launch our initial investment fund," says Itzhak Fisher, Chairman and General Partner for Pereg Ventures. Although Pereg Ventures is a fully independent venture capital firm, Nielsen is providing a significant strategic investment in support of the fund's launch. This is part of a broader portfolio of innovation initiatives including
Finistere Ventures, a California-based innovation capital firm, has held the first closing of its new USD150 million Agtech Fund, Finistere II.
The fund focuses on new technology solutions in food productivity, sustainability, and nutrition to address the ever-decreasing agricultural land resources, climate change, and changing population demographics. Finistere is collaborating with Bayer CropScience, AVAC Ltd, and other partners to identify and invest in world-class technologies across early-to-growth stage companies in the Agtech space.
“We are excited by the promising technologies and companies in the Agtech space that need both capital and the strategic, technical, and operating expertise that we bring
Albion Ventures is investing up to GBP9.5 million in Radnor House School (RHS) to fund the acquisition of Combe Bank School, a co-educational independent school for students aged three to 18, in Kent.
In 2010 Albion invested GBP8.7 million in Radnor House School, a new co-educational independent day school for students aged 7- 18 in Twickenham, South West London. Since then the school has performed exceptionally well and has established an excellent reputation. Since opening its pupil intake has increased to 360 currently and this is predicted to rise to a near capacity 420 by September 2015.
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