Gimv invests in BioConnection, a contract development and manufacturing organisation for injectable (bio)pharmaceutical products
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EQT- Earth Day Message from the CEO
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Ardian raises record $5.25bn infrastructure secondaries fund
Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, today announces it has raised $5.25bn for its latest infrastructure secondaries fund – Ardian Secondary Fund VIII Infrastructure (ASF VIII Infrastructure). The fund, which was significantly oversubscribed and reached its hard cap within nine months, is the largest infrastructure secondaries platform in the world. It represents a more than 3x increase from the previous generation raised in 2017.
The successful fundraise is the latest of a number of innovations developed by Ardian’s secondary platform in its 23 year history. The team, led by Mark Benedetti, Vladimir Colas, Marie-Victoire Rozé and Jan Philipp Schmitz, now comprises over 110 investment professionals who continuously engage with General Partners, sellers, and clients to develop innovative solutions to investors‘ liquidity needs. Ardian’s secondary AUM has increased by $8 billion to $63 billion in the last 12 months.
The ASF VIII Infrastructure platform attracted over 145 investors from 28 countries across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, comprising major pension funds, insurance companies, HNWIs and financial institutions.
The fundraise demonstrates strong investor appetite in a secondary market that is poised to grow significantly in the coming years on the back of increasing investor demand for private market investments. Secondary buyers provide an important source of liquidity for investors around the world whose allocations to private markets are becoming more significant in their portfolios. Ardian continues to lead the market in infrastructure secondaries having recently completed the two largest infrastructure secondary transactions in the world.
Continuing its successful investment strategy, ASF VIII Infrastructure will focus on high quality infrastructure funds and assets, managed by blue chip general partners in North America and Europe. The fund is targeting a diverse range of underlying assets, from renewable energy and telecoms to transport and utilities. Sustainability is embedded at every step of Ardian’s investment and portfolio monitoring approach.
The fund is already 30% committed in two infrastructure secondary transactions, including one of the largest secondary infrastructure transactions ever completed, a diversified portfolio of over 30 infrastructure funds and co-investments purchased from a financial institution.
Ardian Secondaries
Ardian Secondaries is the world’s largest Fund of Funds platform.
The successful fundraise follows a record year for Ardian’s Secondaries team in 2021, closing 27 transactions which represent $17 billion in deal volume. The average deal size for the top 10 transactions was $1 billion.
Over the past 12 months, Ardian’s Secondaries business increased its AUM by $8 billion to $63 billion. The team’s headcount also grew by 22% in 2021, now comprising more than 110 investment professionals.
ABOUT ARDIAN
Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$125 billion managed or advised in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The company is majority-owned by its employees. It keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and focuses on delivering excellent investment performance to its global investor base. Through its commitment to shared outcomes for all stakeholders, Ardian’s activities fuel individual, corporate and economic growth around the world. Holding close its core values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 800 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Americas (New York, San Francisco and Santiago) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul). It manages funds on behalf of more than 1,200 clients through five pillars of investment expertise: Secondaries, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.
American Laboratory Products Company Merges with GeneProof
SALEM, N.H. and BRNO, Czech Republic, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — American Laboratory Products Company, Ltd. (“ALPCO”), a specialty in vitro diagnostics company, today announced a merger with GeneProof a.s. (“GeneProof”), a leading molecular diagnostics company based in Brno, Czech Republic. The combination creates a global market leader in the diagnostic products market, with broad capabilities spanning novel immunoassay testing kits, real-time PCR testing products, and automated laboratory instrumentation solutions.
GeneProof was founded over 15 years ago by Drs. Radek Horvath and Milos Dendis and is an established market leader in the molecular diagnostics field. Both Founders will remain with the merged company and continue as significant shareholders. GeneProof is the largest producer of PCR reagents in the Czech Republic and distributes its portfolio of more than 70 CE-marked molecular diagnostic tests and instruments throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Products are primarily focused on the infectious and genetic diseases. With a strong emphasis on quality, GeneProof offers technologically advanced real-time PCR kits and user-friendly automated instrument platforms for both nucleic acid extraction and sample-to-answer testing that meet the diverse throughput needs of laboratories.
The combined company is majority owned by Ampersand Capital Partners (“Ampersand”), which first invested in ALPCO in 2020.
“ALPCO and GeneProof have both earned great reputations in their respective markets, ALPCO in immunodiagnostics and GeneProof in molecular diagnostics,” said Sean Conley, President and CEO of ALPCO. “The combination of the two companies transforms both organizations into a more complete solutions provider and aligns well with ALPCO’s strategy of investing in proprietary automated platforms.”
Radek Horvath, CEO of GeneProof, added, “This strategic connection represents a new chapter in the life of both companies. It will facilitate the entry of GeneProof products into the US market, and similarly, expand the presence of ALPCO products into the EU and around the world. The combination of deep knowledge in the field of molecular diagnostics as well as in the field of immunological diagnostics will bring a significant synergistic effect. The two merged companies intend to use each other’s technological experience and rely on the support of our strong partner, Ampersand, for further development.”
Eric Lev, General Partner at Ampersand and Board member of ALPCO added, “I look forward to working with Sean, Radek, and Milos as we build the combined company into a fully integrated global leader in the field of diagnostics and commercialize GeneProof’s fully automated real-time PCR offerings in the North American market.”
About ALPCO
American Laboratory Products Company (ALPCO) was founded in 1991 as an importer and distributor of immunoassay-based products for the North American life science markets. The company has since evolved into a leading producer of novel immunodiagnostic reagents for specialty testing laboratories. In September of 2020, ALPCO announced the recapitalization of the company by Ampersand Capital Partners. Ampersand’s investment was sought to accelerate ALPCO’s global growth initiatives, including the expansion of the company’s diagnostics reagent offering, broadening the company’s geographic presence, and fueling technological advancement. For additional information, please visit www.alpco.com.
About GeneProof
Based in Brno, Czech Republic, GeneProof a.s. was founded in 2005 by Dr. Radek Horvath and Dr. Milos Dendis. GeneProof offers a wide range of in vitro molecular diagnostic products, primarily focused on the infectious diseases and genetic mutations. The Company has established a portfolio of more than 70 CE-marked PCR test kits and a proprietary instrumentation offering to serve laboratories of all sizes. GeneProof’s sales and distribution network covers more than 60 countries around the world. For detailed information see www.geneproof.com.
About Ampersand Capital Partners
Founded in 1988, Ampersand is a middle market private equity firm with more than $2 billion of assets under management dedicated to growth-oriented investments in the healthcare sector. With offices in Boston and Amsterdam, Ampersand leverages its unique blend of private equity and operating experience to build value and drive superior long-term performance alongside its portfolio company management teams. Ampersand has helped build numerous market-leading companies across each of the firm’s core healthcare sectors. Additional information about Ampersand is available at ampersandcapital.com.
Mendel Raises $40 Million Series B Round to Expand its Team and Grow Product Offering
SAN JOSE, Calif., April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Mendel, the leading clinical artificial intelligence and natural language processing platform, today announced it has raised $40 million in Series B funding round led by Oak HC/FT. The round includes participation from existing investor DCM, who led Mendel’s Series A funding round in June 2021.
This funding comes amidst surging customer demand for Mendel’s AI infrastructure. The fresh capital will enable the company to expand its team of AI and engineering teams and scale the commercial organization. It will also help accelerate the release of Mendel’s new, breakthrough product, Resolve, which consolidates clinical information to create a coherent longitudinal view of the patient journey. Traditionally, it takes nearly five years to manually abstract 2 million patient lives. Mendel’s Resolve abstracts the same number in less than 24 hours.
“The capital we have raised is a testament to the strong market fit and demand,” said Karim Galil, Co-Founder and CEO of Mendel. “Our vision it to weave Mendel into the fabric of every healthcare data platform. It’s exciting to partner with Oak HC/FT as we enable the healthcare ecosystem to provide better care for every patient.”
The healthcare industry faces immense challenges in parsing unstructured medical data that is highly valuable, but also extremely difficult and expensive to access. Mendel’s solution unlocks 80% of the world’s clinical data by leveraging contextual understanding to transform unstructured electronic medical record (EMR) data and clinical literature into comprehensive and compliant analytics-ready data. It abstracts data 27,000 times faster than the primarily manual methods most frequently used in clinical settings, and its output is reviewed and validated by a team of clinical experts to guarantee research-grade output.
“We believe Mendel can become a mission-critical infrastructure platform for the healthcare industry,” said Billy Deitch, Partner at Oak HC/FT. “Mendel’s technology sets a new standard in accuracy and scalability for processing unstructured medical data and we are confident that the company will continue to lead the industry with cutting edge solutions [and delivering for their customers].”
“Going as far back as our first investment in 2017, we’ve always known that Mendel’s novel AI technology was going to change the face of healthcare’s information infrastructure,” said Hurst Lin, General Partner at DCM. “We’re proud to continue to support Mendel through its next phase of growth that comes at such a critical time for the entire healthcare industry.”
For more information about Mendel visit Mendel.ai, and to see open positions visit Mendel.ai/careers.
About Mendel
Mendel is a machine that can read and understand medicine. Mendel Health is a for-profit corporation headquartered in San Jose, California that uses novel AI technology to absorb clinical data in medical literature as well as patient health records, to unlock a wide range of Real World Data applications. For more information about Mendel, visit Mendel.ai.
About OAK HC/FT
Oak HC/FT is a venture and growth equity firm investing in companies driving transformation in healthcare and fintech, two uniquely complementary and high-growth sectors. With deep domain expertise and strategic resources, Oak HC/FT partners with leading entrepreneurs at every stage, from seed to growth, to build businesses that make a measurable, lasting impact on these industries. Founded in 2014, the firm has $3.3 billion in assets under management and is headquartered in Greenwich, CT, with investors in San Francisco and Boston. Follow Oak HC/FT on Twitter and LinkedIn and learn more at oakhcft.com.
About DCM
DCM is a global venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo with over $4.2 billion under management and a 25-year track record of top performance. DCM has invested in more than 400 early-stage technology companies globally and provides hands-on operational guidance and a global network of business and financial resources. DCM portfolio companies have an aggregate enterprise value exceeding $250 billion including industry leading companies Bill.com, Careem (UBER), Hims & Hers, Kuaishou, Musically (TikTok) and SoFi. For more information, visit https://www.dcm.com.
Media Contact:
Amalia Lytle
646-818-9271
AURELIUS GROUP JOINS UN GLOBAL COMPACT INITIATIVE
Munich, 21. April 2022 – AURELIUS Group has joined the UN Global Compact (UNGC) and its German subsidiary, Deutsches Global Compact Netzwerk (DGCN). The membership underlines AURELIUS´ commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) values within everyday practice and complements the Group’s participation at the UN PRI network in December 2021.
The UN Global Compact is the world’s largest and most important initiative for sustainable and responsible corporate governance, globally connecting more than 19,000 companies and organisations. The German subsidiary DGCN has more than 780 participants across business, civil society and politics. The UNGC supports companies in strategically incorporating sustainability values based on ten universal principles and in contributing to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. In line with the UNGC, AURELIUS commits to the initiative´s ten principles, which are assigned to the categories: Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption.
“Walk the talk – there are not many economic fields where this saying is as resonating as it is with ESG. At AURELIUS, we are not only fully committed to supporting the UNGC´s values – we are also deeply convinced that our organisation and our people can contribute a small piece to the initiatives vision. Joining the UNGC and DGCN is a logical step for us and is aligned with our core values”, stated Matthias Täubl, AURELIUS CEO.
As an official member of UNGC and DGCN, AURELIUS will proudly integrate the principles into its corporate culture and strategy. They will be promoted in the best possible way within day-to-day operation.
American Laboratory Products Company Merges with GeneProof
American Laboratory Products Company Merges with GeneProof
SALEM, N.H. and BRNO, Czech Republic, April 21, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — American Laboratory Products Company, Ltd. (“ALPCO”), a specialty in vitro diagnostics company, today announced a merger with GeneProof a.s. (“GeneProof”), a leading molecular diagnostics company based in Brno, Czech Republic. The combination creates a global market leader in the diagnostic products market, with broad capabilities spanning novel immunoassay testing kits, real-time PCR testing products, and automated laboratory instrumentation solutions.
GeneProof was founded over 15 years ago by Drs. Radek Horvath and Milos Dendis and is an established market leader in the molecular diagnostics field. Both Founders will remain with the merged company and continue as significant shareholders. GeneProof is the largest producer of PCR reagents in the Czech Republic and distributes its portfolio of more than 70 CE-marked molecular diagnostic tests and instruments throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. Products are primarily focused on the infectious and genetic diseases. With a strong emphasis on quality, GeneProof offers technologically advanced real-time PCR kits and user-friendly automated instrument platforms for both nucleic acid extraction and sample-to-answer testing that meet the diverse throughput needs of laboratories.
The combined company is majority owned by Ampersand Capital Partners (“Ampersand”), which first invested in ALPCO in 2020.
“ALPCO and GeneProof have both earned great reputations in their respective markets, ALPCO in immunodiagnostics and GeneProof in molecular diagnostics,” said Sean Conley, President and CEO of ALPCO. “The combination of the two companies transforms both organizations into a more complete solutions provider and aligns well with ALPCO’s strategy of investing in proprietary automated platforms.”
Radek Horvath, CEO of GeneProof, added, “This strategic connection represents a new chapter in the life of both companies. It will facilitate the entry of GeneProof products into the US market, and similarly, expand the presence of ALPCO products into the EU and around the world. The combination of deep knowledge in the field of molecular diagnostics as well as in the field of immunological diagnostics will bring a significant synergistic effect. The two merged companies intend to use each other’s technological experience and rely on the support of our strong partner, Ampersand, for further development.”
Eric Lev, General Partner at Ampersand and Board member of ALPCO added, “I look forward to working with Sean, Radek, and Milos as we build the combined company into a fully integrated global leader in the field of diagnostics and commercialize GeneProof’s fully automated real-time PCR offerings in the North American market.”
About ALPCO
American Laboratory Products Company (ALPCO) was founded in 1991 as an importer and distributor of immunoassay-based products for the North American life science markets. The company has since evolved into a leading producer of novel immunodiagnostic reagents for specialty testing laboratories. In September of 2020, ALPCO announced the recapitalization of the company by Ampersand Capital Partners. Ampersand’s investment was sought to accelerate ALPCO’s global growth initiatives, including the expansion of the company’s diagnostics reagent offering, broadening the company’s geographic presence, and fueling technological advancement. For additional information, please visit www.alpco.com.
About GeneProof
Based in Brno, Czech Republic, GeneProof a.s. was founded in 2005 by Dr. Radek Horvath and Dr. Milos Dendis. GeneProof offers a wide range of in vitro molecular diagnostic products, primarily focused on the infectious diseases and genetic mutations. The Company has established a portfolio of more than 70 CE-marked PCR test kits and a proprietary instrumentation offering to serve laboratories of all sizes. GeneProof’s sales and distribution network covers more than 60 countries around the world. For detailed information see www.geneproof.com.
About Ampersand Capital Partners
Founded in 1988, Ampersand is a middle market private equity firm with more than $2 billion of assets under management dedicated to growth-oriented investments in the healthcare sector. With offices in Boston and Amsterdam, Ampersand leverages its unique blend of private equity and operating experience to build value and drive superior long-term performance alongside its portfolio company management teams. Ampersand has helped build numerous market-leading companies across each of the firm’s core healthcare sectors. Additional information about Ampersand is available at ampersandcapital.com.
Blackstone Announces Close of Blackstone Life Sciences Yield Fund at $1.6 Billion
–Fund enhances firm’s capacity to invest in life sciences innovation and is the largest first-time fund of its kind
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.– Blackstone (NYSE: BX) today announced the close of Blackstone Life Sciences Yield (“BXLS Yield”), its inaugural royalty and structured credit-focused life sciences fund. The fund was oversubscribed and is the largest first-time fund of this nature. It closed with $1.6 billion of investor capital focused on post-approval, commercial-stage opportunities. It complements the flagship strategy of BXLS, which invests in late-stage product development. Together, the two pools of capital enable BXLS to support end-to-end life science innovation at scale and showcase Blackstone’s deep conviction in this sector.
Nicholas Galakatos, Ph.D., Global Head of Blackstone Life Sciences, said: “Blackstone Life Sciences aims to invest across the full lifecycle of innovative medicines and medical technologies. BXLS Yield comes at a critical time for many companies in need of structured credit and royalty opportunities as they seek to grow their business in challenging market conditions. We anticipate these two pools of capital will allow us to offer strategic financing solutions to our partners as we did through our $2 billion collaboration with Alnylam in April 2020.”
Craig Shepherd, Senior Managing Director with Blackstone Life Sciences, added: “The diversity of capital, resources and scientific expertise that Blackstone can offer is a clear differentiator. We are excited to continue partnering with leading life sciences companies around the world and to help grow their businesses.”
BXLS Yield further scales and diversifies Blackstone’s life sciences investing capabilities. The firm launched Blackstone Life Sciences nearly four years ago in response to the unprecedented innovation unleashed in the space by emergent technologies and scientific advancement. Since then, it has transformed into an industry-leading investment platform, meeting global demand for different forms of capital and scientific expertise. Through its flagship strategy, the team sources, evaluates and actively supports potentially transformative products and therapies.
About Blackstone Life Sciences
Blackstone Life Sciences is an industry-leading private investment platform with capabilities to invest across the life cycle of companies and products within the key life science sectors. By combining scale investments and hands-on operational leadership, Blackstone Life Sciences helps bring to market promising new medicines and medical technologies that improve patients’ lives. More information is provided at https://www.blackstone.com/our-businesses/life-sciences/.
Contact
Paula Chirhart
+1 347 463 5453
paula.chirhart@blackstone.com
Partners Group to acquire Version 1, a leading digital transformation services provider in the UK and Ireland
- Version 1 has around 450 clients across the private and public sector
- The digital transformation services sector is experiencing strong tailwinds
- Partners Group plans to work with Version 1’s best-in-class management team to support its accelerated growth journey and further internationalization
Partners Group, a leading global private markets firm, has, on behalf of its clients, agreed to acquire Version 1 (or “the Company”), one of the leading digital transformation services providers in the UK and Ireland, from Volpi Capital and management.
Headquartered in Dublin, Version 1 works with private and public sector clients on complex digital transformation programs. The Company’s services include application modernization, cloud migration services, and cloud-native software engineering, which involves the development of applications in the cloud. Version 1 has approximately 450 clients, including blue-chip companies and central government departments, and 2,100 employees across offices in Ireland, the UK, India, and Spain. In the last ten years, the Company has successfully integrated 13 add-on acquisitions that have expanded its service portfolio and geographic coverage. The digital transformation services sector is experiencing strong tailwinds including increasing company investment in new digital initiatives and solutions and the growing need to migrate technology infrastructure to the cloud.
Partners Group will work with Version 1’s management team in its next phase of growth as a leading digital transformation specialist. Partners Group’s value creation plan aims to achieve double-digit growth by developing the Company’s service offering and technical depth, building its international presence, and pursuing accretive M&A.
Kim Nguyen, Partner, Co-Head Private Equity Services, Partners Group, says: “We have been tracking Version 1 through our thematic focus on digital transformation. Based on our investment and value creation track record related to this theme, we value Version 1’s strong leadership team, differentiated offering, and operations which are reflected by excellent customer and employee satisfaction scores, and impressive organic growth. The Company is well-positioned to capitalize on the tailwinds driving increased digitization across both the private and public sector and we have conviction in its growth prospects. We look forward to working with Version 1’s ambitious management team on our value creation plan.”
Tom O’Connor, Chief Executive Officer, Version 1, comments: “We are extremely pleased to have secured Partners Group as our new partner and majority shareholder. Throughout our process, the firm’s core values, track record and ambition best matched those of Version 1. Partners Group’s sectoral knowledge and international reach will be as important to Version 1 as their investment and endorsement of our growth strategy. We are also pleased for our customers and staff who will benefit as we continue to grow and add more great people to the Version 1 team.”
Invitation to a presentation of Ratos Interim report January-March 2022
The Interim report January-March 2022 will be released on Monday 2 May at 07.00 CEST.
At 09.00 CEST a telephone conference will be held where Jonas Wiström, President and CEO, and Jonas Ågrup, CFO, will present the report.
Participant connection: UK: +44 333 300 9274, SE: +46 8 505 583 54, US: +1 646 722 4956. The telephone conference will be webcasted live at www.ratos.com where presentation material will be available as soon as the report is released.
The telephone conference will be recorded and available at www.ratos.com.
Representatives of the media are welcome to contact Josefine Uppling, VP Communication, for interview requests.
For further information
Josefine Uppling, Vice President Communication
+46 76 114 54 21
josefine.uppling@ratos.com
About Ratos
Ratos is a business group consisting of 13 companies divided into three business areas: Construction & Services, Consumer and Industry. In total 2021, the companies have approximately SEK 35 billion in sales. Our business concept is to develop companies headquartered in the Nordics that are or can become market leaders. We enable independent companies to excel by being part of something larger. People, leadership, culture and values are key focus areas for Ratos. Everything we do is based on Ratos’s core values: Simplicity, Speed in Execution and It’s All About People.