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Syngenta Ventures has made an equity investment in Metabolon, a privately-held US biotechnology company focused on the use of metabolomics in research and diagnostics.
This is the first direct investment by Syngenta Ventures, Syngenta’s newly-established corporate venture capital subsidiary.
"The creation of Syngenta Ventures will complement our in-house R&D work and enables us to be even more involved in promising technologies and innovative products with external partners," says Robert Berendes, head of business development at Syngenta. "We need access to the best available new technologies in order to achieve the increase in agricultural output which will be vital over the
Varicent Software, a provider of sales performance management and incentive compensation management solutions, has raised USD35mn in additional funding led by San Francisco and New York-based FTV Capital.
RBC Venture Partners and EdgeStone Capital Partners, current investors in Varicent, also participated in the new round of funding.
The deal was the second largest privately-funded information technology funding announced in Q3 2009, behind only Facebook. According to Ventana Research, the SPM market is growing at 45 per cent annually and in the US alone is predicted to exceed more than USD8bn in 2010.
"Varicent has developed a strong solution, assembled
Following a slowdown in the second quarter, venture capital investments in the international markets rose back to levels seen in the first quarter of the year, according to data from industry tracker Dow Jones VentureSource.
Venture capitalists put USD1.8bn to work in 297 deals in Europe, Canada, Israel, China and India in the third quarter. This is up from USD1.5bn invested in the second quarter, but on par with the USD1.9bn invested in the first quarter.
“Even as individual regions see dramatic ups and downs quarter over quarter, overall international investments have been steady in 2009,” says Jessica Canning,
Washington State’s venture capital community shows a slightly more optimistic outlook for the coming quarter, according to the results of the Q4 2009 Venture Capital Outlook Survey from the Washington Technology Industry Association.
In what may be a reflection of the beginnings of a broader economic recovery, for the third consecutive quarter predictions are more positive than the previous quarter.
Overall, the main concerns for VCs in the coming quarter include overall market growth, national business conditions, and attracting and retaining senior leadership for their portfolio companies.
"It’s encouraging to see the venture community predict a slowdown in company layoffs,
Octopus Investments has made a GBP2m investment from the GBP30m Octopus Capital for Enterprise Fund into Monkey Bizness, a UK operator of family entertainment centres.
The Octopus investment will be used to strengthen the business’ balance sheet and to finance additional new sites across the UK.
Monkey Bizness currently operates family entertainment centres in six locations – Lewes, Gosport, Poole, Sheffield, Stevenage and Hull – and the company aims to double the current portfolio size over the next three years.
Alistair Brew, director, Octopus Ventures, says: “We have been impressed with what management has achieved to date and believe that
MidOcean Partners, a private equity firm with offices in New York and London, in combination with Allant management, has acquired The Allant Group, a provider of marketing optimisation solutions.
"We have been following the developing trends in the marketing services space for several years and became increasingly impressed with Allant, its market leadership position, and its prospects for continued growth," says Frank Schiff, managing director of MidOcean. "Discussions between our firms began more than three years ago, and we believe that Allant has all the right ingredients to become the top provider in the marketplace."
Frank Sowinski, a former president
Black Opal Equity has been launched as a privately held investment firm that specialises in acquiring and actively managing established middle-market businesses in the US.
The firm will invest in companies that service or partner with the infrastructure, essential service and government sectors in the US.
It looks to acquire well-established companies with strong potential for organic growth, typically with annual Ebitda of between USD2.5m and USD20m.
Black Opal Equity is led by Matthew Day, who has spent much of his career at The Macquarie Group, making private equity acquisitions in the infrastructure service and essential service sectors.
Black Opal
Global Investment House has appointed Rajiv Nakani as senior vice president to head the company’s alternative asset management business.
Nakani (pictured) has more than 16 years’ experience in investing and investment banking and brings in-depth sector experience in financial services, telecom, media, retail, logistics, healthcare, education and real estate.
Nakani was Global’s head of investment banking from August 2004 to June 2007.
Bader Al-Sumait, chief executive officer of Global, says: “It is a pleasure to welcome Mr. Nakani back. In addition to his previous experience with Global where he led several merchant banking transactions and private equity investments on behalf
The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and AXA Private Equity have entered into a partnership to better support Québec- and European-based businesses with international development prospects.
Through this joint effort, the partners will share their respective market knowledge and networks in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle-East with companies.
Normand Provost, executive vice-president private equity and chief operations officer of the Caisse, says: “The partnership is part of our strategy to provide additional support to the best performing and most promising mid-sized Québec businesses in their international expansion. The Caisse’s role is not simply to offer
Peter Mills, Managing Director of Kleinwort Benson (Channel Islands) Fund Services Limited, examines Sweden’s redraft of the EU’s proposed AIFM Directive.
There is a common agreement amongst the financial services industry that the proposed Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers was drafted in a hurry and is capable of vast improvement.
As Head of the Working Committee Group, Sweden has recommended radical changes to the proposed draft to regulate EU fund managers and the regulation of the investment funds which they manage. Some of the proposals – authorising alternative investment fund managers for example – are sensible and improve investor protection.
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