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Venture capital firm Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has led a USD8 million (GBP5m) financing round for Metaforic, a software company based in Glasgow and California, which has developed products to combat piracy and hacker attacks.
The funding round was supported by the company’s existing investors Pentech Ventures and the Scottish Investment Bank’s Scottish Venture Fund. Metaforic will use the funds to expand its international sales and marketing activity.
Metaforic, which counts leading international video game manufacturers and enterprise software businesses in its customer base, solves a major headache for these businesses, who lose billions of pounds of revenue each year
PCCR USA, Inc., a subsidiary of leading Southern European investment group Investindustrial, has signed an agreement with Momentive Specialty Chemicals Inc. to acquire its North American coatings and composites resins business.
The acquired business is headquartered in Carpentersville, near Chicago and operates four manufacturing facilities located in Texas, Illinois, Georgia and California. It recorded 2010 sales of approximately USD230 million, employs 225 associates and is a leading provider throughout North America of resins for coating formulators and composite moulders, serving a long-standing, blue-chip customer base.
This acquisition is a continuation of the build-up of assets Investindustrial is carrying out
Aterian Investment Partners, a middle market private capital firm, has selected Navatar Private Equity Cloud to manage their fundraising, deal flow, portfolio and capital calls/distributions.
Navatar Private Equity provides out-of-the-box functionality and workflows essential for private equity firms. It runs entirely in salesforce.com’s cloud and is available for a low monthly fee. Its flexible reporting engine can be easily used by non-technical staff to generate reports.
"We’re pleased that private equity firms around the world are choosing Navatar’s service," says Ketan Khandkar (pictured), Principal, Navatar Group. "Firms can now start using a fully built solution for their CRM and operations
Carne Global Financial Services has appointed Roisin Cater as an independent director for the boards of client funds in the Cayman Islands.
Cater is a highly experienced Cayman Islands lawyer with an extensive track record in the funds business, including with law firm Mourant, where she was Managing Partner, and the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange (CSX), where she worked as a Senior Listing Executive. She was appointed to the board of the CSX in 2007, and is also a member of the listing committee, reviewing and approving listing requests. She originally trained with Linklaters London.
John Donohoe, Chief Executive of
Oxford Investment Opportunity Network (OION) has welcomed the UK Government’s announcement of the Regional Growth Fund which looks likely to provide GBP50 million for the development of a national fund to invest in high growth start-ups alongside business angels.
Established as one of the first business angel networks in 1994, OION is one of the few private sector angel networks in the UK. From its headquarters in Oxford, the Network assists innovative companies from across the UK to secure crucial business development funding from GBP200,000 to GBP2 million.
The OION Network was one of five partners in the successful
Jeffrey A Legault has joined Goodwin Procter’s Business Law Department in its Private Equity Practice. Legault will be based in Goodwin’s New York office and his practice will focus on domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions. He joins Goodwin from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, where he had practiced since 2005.
Legault has advised a wide range of clients, including private equity firms, large corporate entities, both public and private, and global investment banks. Prior to his work at Cadwalader, Legault worked in Shearman & Sterling LLP’s Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
“Jeff will be a great
Runa Capital, a Russian seed-stage Venture Capital firm, has made a third investment; in Metabar (http://www.metabar.ru), a free platform that automates the process of creating browser-based applications. The platform is the first of its kind designed specifically to help increase web traffic and brand loyalty for Russian-based internet sites.
According to Michael Ushakov, CEO at Metabar: "The Russian internet today includes hundreds of sites that attract a million plus visitors. Metabar’s team has extensive experience of this market and the resources needed target these websites. Our platform allows website owners to quickly offer applications that can transform casual visitors
Figures released today show that CDC Group plc (CDC), the UK’s development finance institution, increased the level of its investment in developing countries to GBP420m for the year. The UK government-owned investor also made a return of GBP269m in 2010.
By increasing both the level of investment and returns on its 2009 figures, CDC has also played an important role in demonstrating to other investors the potential of the private sector in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
The company, which is the biggest private equity investor in sub-Saharan Africa, now provides investment to 930 businesses in 70 countries. These
Plans to open up the European Union (EU) to more private equity investment from venture capitalists have received support from alternative investment advocacy group, Alternative Asset Analysis (AAA).
The proposals set out by the European Commission (EC) would see venture capitalists granted a ‘passport’ to allow them to invest anywhere within the EU.
AAA analyst Anthony Johnson says: "The plans to open up investment routes within the European Union will be good for the alternative investment market in the region and will also stimulate economic growth for EU member countries."
Small businesses based in EU member states will particularly benefit
HarbourVest Global Private Equity’s estimated economic NAV is USD858.6 million or USD10.35 per share, as at 31 March 2011. This is a 3.6% increase from the 28 February 2011 estimated Economic NAV per share of USD9.99.
The change was driven by increases in value for privately-held companies as a portion of direct and fund-of-fund holdings were revalued to reflect final 31 December 2010 results (approximately USD0.32 per share); increases in the value of publicly-traded holdings to 31 March (USD0.01 per share); and foreign currency movement (USD0.05 per share).
The gains were partially offset by ongoing operating expenses (USD0.02 per
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