Solutions
In this exclusive Q&A interview, Private Equity Wire asked Christina Ulardic, partner at Astanor Ventures, some of our most burning questions regarding the future of food tech and her view on how it relates to the opportunities that private capital can provide in this space.
Forward Partners, a London-based venture capital firm, is to to seek admission of its shares to trading on AIM, a market of the London Stock Exchange (Admission).
Founded in 2013, Forward Partners is a well-established and respected London-based venture capital firm, specialising in supporting high growth, early-stage technology businesses. It brings together venture capital provider Forward Ventures, equity-free revenue-based financing through Forward Advances and highly specialised growth support from Forward Studio. This model supports founders to build stronger businesses and meet strategic goals faster – ultimately aiming to provide better outcomes for companies and investors alike.
Becoming a public company
Arma Partners has acted as exclusive financial advisor to Summa Equity on its acquisition of a majority stake in myneva, a European software provider for the social care sector, from BID Equity.
Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Hamburg, myneva offers dedicated SaaS solutions across the elderly, disabled, social and youth care sectors, helping care providers digitise their workflows, better manage increased demand for care and respond to evolving patient needs. myneva was formed through the merger of the Regas Group, Heimbas and Daarwin and the subsequent acquisition of six established and independent software specialists. Since then, the company has
StepEx, the only FCA-regulated fintech startup that provides affordable student finance based on future earnings rather than debt, has raised GBP1.1 million in pre-seed funding.
This follows an earlier angel investment of GBP270,000. Backed by BBVA Anthemis Venture Partnership, Triple Point Ventures, and prominent angel investors — including renowned fintech investor Chris Adelsbach — the money will primarily fund further development of the company’s machine learning model and user platform, as well as expansion of the senior team.
Only two per cent of the population can afford to take on the cost of pursuing a top postgraduate qualification. StepEx aims to widen
Private equity firm American Securities’ opportunistic credit business, Ascribe Capital, has merged with Birch Grove Capital (BGC), a credit asset management business.
The combined entity, which will be named AS Birch Grove, manages approximately USD5 billion in assets across an opportunistic hedge fund, private credit vehicles, and par credit and collateralised loan obligation vehicles. AS Birch Grove, along with its funds, will be well positioned to become a more diversified credit asset management business.
In the near term, AS Birch Grove has over USD1 billion in capital to invest in opportunistic credit situations across leveraged loans, high yield and convertible
Sudrania Fund Services (Sudrania), one of the world’s fastest-growing fund administrators, has opened its newest office in Toronto, Canada to introduce its end-to-end cloud-based fund administration platform to institutional investors.
Read the full story at Institutional Asset Manager…
Waystone, a provider of institutional governance, risk and compliance services to the asset management industry, has secured significant investment from Montagu Private Equity, a European private equity firm, to accelerate its global growth strategy.
The investment represents a significant opportunity for Waystone to build upon its current expansion plans and continue to invest in offering its clients an extensive set of global solutions and unrivalled quality of service. The investment, which is subject to regulatory approval, will see Montagu take a strategic stake in the business and support the next phase of Waystone’s growth.
The investment will also conclude
Alliance Asset Management, a UK provider of vehicle fleet solutions, has secured a GBP5 million facility that will be used to support the company’s growth on the back of recent major contract wins.
The firm offers vehicle rental and leases to businesses and educational establishments across the UK, working with fleets ranging in size from one to 10,000. The independently owned business, which has been operating for more than 24 years, manages all aspects of vehicle rental, from booking to sourcing vehicles and helping to reduce unexpected costs such as excess mileage and damage.
The investment will bolster Alliance
Deals in the food tech space have been picking up lately, with Scandinavian food tech startups like Curb, which was founded by Delivery Hero’s former executive Carl Tengberg, and Danish food platform Superb, being the latest in a string of recent growth equity investments in this space.
ARQIS has advised Munich-based AI startup OCELL on its seed financing round. With software for digital forestry, OCELL helps forest managers to achieve more efficiency and sustainability.
Business angels from the BayStartUP investor network are now investing a high six figure sum in this technology under the leadership of Andreas Kupke (Finanzcheck) and Wolfgang Seibold together with the TUM Initiative for Industrial Innovators. The capital injection is supplemented by a funding amount of over EUR500,000. The capital will be used for product and quality improvement as well as the expansion of the communications, marketing and sales departments.
The startup OCELL
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
