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Shopa (www.shopa.com), the social shopping site where customers can discover, share and buy products they love, has completed a USD11 million series A funding round.
UK venture capital firms Octopus Investments (which backed Zoopla, YPlan and SwiftKey) and Notion Capital (which funded Shutl and Duedil) led the fund raising. Shopa is now planning to roll out its ocial shopping technology in China and India after launching in the UK and US.
Peter Janes, Founder and CEO of Shopa, says: “Combining online shopping with the power of social is the holy grail of ecommerce, yet many brands are failing to fully
Paul Hastings has recently advised the portfolio companies of US private equity firms Beecken Petty O'Keefe & Company and Pfingsten Partners on three separate significant cross border acquisitions.
The firm represented Paragon Medical, a portfolio company of Beecken Petty O'Keefe & Company, in its acquisition of the medical device business segment of Michael Bubolz GmbH. Headquartered in Stuhr, Germany, and with a facility in Siechnice, Poland, Michael Bubolz manufactures close tolerance surgical instrumentation, a wide variety of orthopaedic implantable components and also provides complete sterile pack products. The transaction signed on 15 January, 2015. The Paul Hastings team advising Paragon
The German market for SME private equity remains in a very robust state at the start of the year, according to latest survey of the private equity panel polled three times a year by CMS Germany and FINANCE magazine.
The portfolio companies held by German private equity investors continue to defy the many trouble spots that surround them and private equity managers believe that the business prospects of their portfolio companies actually improved further at the start of the new year. Some 40 private equity (PE) firms provide anonymous assessments of the market for the survey.
"The current strong business
Standard Life Investments, the Global Asset Manager, has made two new appointments to its Infrastructure Debt team.
Alex Campbell joins as Investment Director for Infrastructure Debt and will be responsible for the sourcing, negotiation, preparation and review of infrastructure debt funding proposals. Based at St Mary Axe, London, Alex is an experienced originator and underwriter of long-dated capital market debt with expertise across a range of infrastructure assets both social and economic. He is also experienced in related asset classes such as utilities and real estate financings.
In addition, Marianne Froude has joined as Investment Analyst for the Infrastructure team.
Sidley Austin has further expanded its energy and M&A practices with the addition of partners Karen A Dewis, Kenneth W Irvin and Daryl L Rice in Washington, DC.
Irvin’s and Rice’s practices involve a broad cross-section of energy and commodities transactions, including energy trading and marketing, hedging and derivatives transactions, as well as the representation of clients in regulatory and investigation matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Dewis represents public and private clients in connection with complex M&A, joint venture, spin-off and other strategic transactions, with a particular focus on the energy/commodities, financial services and general industrial sectors.
A group of investors led by Lakewood Capital and including existing management has acquired Vacuum Systems International, Inc. through a newly formed entity, VSI International (VSI).
Founded in 1994, VSI is a unique value added provider of cost saving and sustainable equipment remanufacturing and fleet rotational programs utilised by large multi-location concerns. The Company manages commercial vacuum cleaners and steamers used in 72,000 facilities, and has the capability of servicing nearly every major brand of commercial vacuum cleaner in the world.
Diana Richards, founder of Vacuum Systems, says: "Partnering with Lakewood will provide our management and employees with the
Asset management firm Victory Park Capital (VPC) is strengthening its capabilities in the asset liquidation industry through an investment in Yellen Partners, an asset liquidation company.
VPC plans to combine Yellen Partners with existing portfolio company Reich Brothers Holdings, which focuses on capital and surplus asset solutions. The expanded platform will be renamed YR Holdings, LLC (YR Holdings), and will grow VPC’s presence in the sector by diversifying the company’s service offerings into retail and inventory, in-house appraisal and auction capabilities, and expanding its capabilities in industrial, manufacturing and healthcare asset liquidations.
YR Holdings, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, Reich Bros
Private equity firm Solis Capital Partners (Solis) has partnered with venture capital firm Innovate Partners to acquire an equity interest in Lindora, a provider of medically supervised weight loss and weight management programs.
Founded by Dr Marshall Stamper in 1971, Lindora has more than 40 years of success providing comprehensive and personalized medical weight loss and weight maintenance programs to clients across North America. Its success is accomplished through its online programs and clinic locations across California using a combination of medically guided diet, moderate exercise and coaching.
"Lindora has a longstanding track record of using its proven, medically supervised,
In an extract from the recently released 2015 Preqin Global Private Equity & Venture Capital Report, we analyze the results of Preqin’s latest survey of private equity and venture capital fund managers in order to gauge their concerns, views and plans for the year ahead.
Key Issues
Fundraising, valuations, performance, exits, and ongoing volatility and uncertainty in global markets were all highlighted by significant proportions of respondents as some of the biggest challenges facing the private equity and venture capital industry in the year ahead. However, significant variation exists between firms with differing strategies. Surveyed buyout firms felt that
Abacus Group, a provider of hosted IT solutions for hedge funds and private equity funds, has been named as an Elite Services Provider (ESP) on 2015 CRN Managed Service Provider (MSP) 500 list.
This annual list distinguishes the top technology providers and consultants in North America whose leading approach to managed services enables their customers to improve operational efficiencies, elicit greater value from their IT investments and successfully leverage technology to achieve greater competitive advantage.
In today’s world of outsourced IT, the expertise of MSPs has become increasingly important to organisations. The plethora of choices in terms of consumption
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