Category Archives: News

Apax closes Apax Digital Fund II at $1.75bn hard cap

Apax Digital
  • Reaches hard cap in less than four months
  • Oversubscribed second tech-focused growth equity fund with a high re-up rate
  • Leverages Apax’s deep technology expertise and global platform to invest in minority growth and growth buyout opportunities worldwide

 

Apax, a leading global private equity advisory firm, announced today the final close of Apax Digital Fund II (“ADF II”) at its $1.75bn hard cap. The fund will invest in high-growth technology companies globally.

ADF II will pursue the same strategy as its predecessor fund, targeting minority growth and growth buyout opportunities in rapidly expanding software, internet, and tech-enabled services companies worldwide.

The Apax Digital team, co-led by Managing Partners Dan O’Keefe and Marcelo Gigliani, will continue to draw on Apax’s deep-rooted technology expertise, global platform, and Operational Excellence Practice to partner with exceptional founders and leadership teams to help them accelerate growth, drive transformational change, and unlock value. Since inception the Apax Funds have invested c.$16bn in more than 200 companies within the technology sector.

Marcelo Gigliani and Dan O’Keefe, Managing Partners of Apax Digital commented: “We are grateful for the confidence of our investors, many of whom backed the predecessor fund. As demonstrated by ADF I, our deep technology expertise, the strength and scale of Apax’s global platform, and the value creation driven by Apax’s operational team, allow us to empower the companies we work with to go farther, faster.”

Mitch Truwit, Co-CEO of Apax and Chairman of Apax Digital , said: “We want to thank our limited partners for their support, which is a testament to the fund’s performance and the Digital team’s distinctive positioning in the market. Their experience, dedication, and ability to help companies scale and accelerate growth gives them a clear edge.”

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On Industrifonden’s investment in Logical Clocks- transforming the machine learning workflow

Industriefonden
September 24, 2021

It was recently announced that Logical Clocks raised 5 million euros from Industrifonden and Inventure to accelerate international growth. Logical Clocks offers Hopsworks, a state of the art platform that includes the industry’s leading Feature Store for machine learning, and a data science platform for the design and operation of machine learning workflows. They already have several large international clients such as AGL Australia, Wildlife Studios and SparkNZ. Logical Clocks is experiencing fast growth that will increase further with the recent investment.

At Industrifonden, we believe in the transformational power of AI and that the hype cycle we have seen will turn into a new era of machine learning actually being applied on a much broader scale, in everything from solutions to global challenges such as the climate crisis to improving everyday business decisions (see our AI-investment thesis here). Logical Clocks’ platform, called Hopsworks, solves many of the problems ML initiatives face today. Therefore, supporting Logical Clocks journey in enabling the operationalization of AI will radically accelerate the use of AI in many industries.

In 2011, Marc Andressen coined the expression “Software is eating the world”. Ten years later, we believe it is time for AI to eat software. However, so far what we are seeing is that too many companies are failing in their early machine learning initiatives, especially in getting models into production and generating value or reducing costs for the business1. Problems in managing data for training and serving models, disconnected teams, as well as not having a complete solution for automated machine learning workflows, are some of the issues leading to the slow and, often unsuccessful, adoption of machine learning.

Companies are investing large amounts of money into trying to resolve some of these issues and deal with the ongoing explosion in data. Typically, before tackling AI, companies first build a foundation for a modern data infrastructure, with support for scalable and often real-time analysis. This investment in data infrastructure is expected to accelerate coming years2. As the market for data infrastructure and AI technologies matures and grows, companies need more and better access to innovative AI models, applications and platforms. Unless AI models are in production, there is no return on investment.

Meet Logical Clocks and their platform, Hopsworks

Hopsworks is a platform for the design and operation of AI systems. It is designed to solve many of these challenges and pain points, providing a centralized ML platform with the industry’s most advanced and high performance Feature Store. This enables organizations to manage models with low latency access to data spanning the whole organization. With Hopsworks, companies can easily deploy real-time features (features are the clean, information-rich data used to train and make predictions with models), govern models with custom metadata and built-in data provenance, and increase effectiveness and collaboration across data and ML teams.

In other words, Hopsworks introduces a pivotal technology that streamlines the management of features, making it simpler, faster, and cheaper to move models to production. Hopsworks’ was built on a principle of being an open platform that allows data teams to choose their tools and deployment environment, either on-premises or as a managed platform in the cloud.

Hopsworks is available both on-premises and as a managed service on AWS and Azure today. It supports Python and Spark environments for feature engineering and model training, and it connects with the largest number of data storage and data science tools. The platform offers two product tiers: the open-source Community version that targets individuals or small organizations that want to try the Hopsworks Feature Store, and the Enterprise version that provides security and integrations to support organizations in building production machine learning applications at scale.

With this funding round, Logical Clocks will accelerate its international mission to help enterprises implement and manage AI-models at scale. We are extremely impressed with the team’s grit, strong research background, and technical skills. We could not be more excited and honored to partner with Jim, Theo, Fabio and the other eight founders on the next stage of the company’s journey!

/ Rebecka Löthman Rydå, Investment Director

  1. https://www.forbes.com/sites/gilpress/2020/01/13/ai-stats-news-only-146-of-firms-have-deployed-ai-capabilities-in-production/?sh=12b869282650
  2. https://www.slideshare.net/delphixdecks/90-of-enterprises-are-using-dataops-why-arent-you

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Ardian acquires majority stake in Florida Food Products and forms partnership with MidOcean

Ardian

21 September 2021 Buyout USA, New York and Eustis

Ardian investment will accelerate the Company’s long-term strategic plan
MidOcean Partners maintains a significant equity stake alongside of Ardian

New York, NY and Eustis, FL – September 21, 2021 – Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, announced today that it has acquired a majority stake in Florida Food Products ( “FFP” or the “Company”) through its U.S. Buyout team from MidOcean Partners (“MidOcean”) for an enterprise value in excess of $1 billion. MidOcean initially invested in the business in 2018 and will retain a significant stake in FFP alongside Ardian. Additional terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

FFP is the leading innovator, formulator and producer of vegetable and fruit-based clean label ingredients. The Company’s products replace traditional, synthetic ingredients with natural, plant-based alternatives, which improve texture and flavor, extend shelf life, and ultimately provide consumers with clean label and natural products. FFP is the largest provider of clean label cures for the protein sector and the Company’s rapidly growing portfolio of natural ingredients have applications across every segment of the food and beverage industry.

Over the last three years, MidOcean and FFP management have significantly grown the business through a series of organic growth initiatives and a strategic acquisition in the flavors sector. Simultaneously, the team completed significant investments in the Company’s infrastructure and dramatically expanded FFP’s product development capabilities. Today, the Company is poised for rapid growth in a number of adjacent segments and is prepared to launch a series of innovative natural ingredients. Ardian and MidOcean will continue to partner with FFP CEO Jim Holdrieth and the Company’s talented executive team to build upon the Company’s deep expertise within its core markets, enter into new direct adjacencies, and expand internationally.

Thibault Basquin, Head of Americas Investments at Ardian Buyout stated, “FFP plays a critical role in the development and formulations of clean label food products for today’s consumer. FFP’s pipeline of innovative natural ingredients will significantly expand the selection of natural products available to consumers in both the retail and food-service channels. By combining Ardian’s global reach and sector experience with MidOcean’s deep knowledge of the space and proven ability to implement transformative strategies, Florida Food Products will accelerate its long-term strategic plan while offering its customers and consumers best-in-class products.”

Christopher Sand, Managing Director at Ardian Buyout continued, “We have deep expertise and an extensive network in the ingredient sector, which we will leverage to support the Company’s global expansion strategy. Florida Food Products is an impressive organization with tremendous growth opportunities and a wide range of capabilities, reflecting the successful implementation of MidOcean and management’s ambitious growth strategy. Our investment in FFP comes after more than two years of dialogue with MidOcean and reflects our shared vision for the business. We couldn’t be more delighted to partner with them on FFP’s next phase of growth.”

Steven Loeffler, Vice President at MidOcean Partners, stated, “Since our initial investment in 2018, FFP has demonstrated exceptional growth and broadened its business as a result of significant investments in the team, its infrastructure, and M&A. Our strategic initiatives have accelerated growth while enhancing the product quality and offering, as well as the Company’s service levels. We have enjoyed a highly successful partnership with Jim Holdrieth and the entire executive team at FFP over the past three years, and we look forward to continuing this partnership alongside Ardian.”

Jim Holdrieth, CEO of FFP, said, “Ardian’s investment in FFP is a testament to the platform we have built with our talented team, industry-leading product portfolio, strong customer relationships, deep R&D pipeline, and ability to generate consistent growth. Similarly, MidOcean’s continued ownership in FFP reflects their conviction in our future growth and ability to deliver industry-leading results. Our mission to improve the food we eat by using the real ingredients that nature offers us has never been so relevant. While the FFP team is incredibly proud of our accomplishments to date, it is our belief that we are still in the initial stages of our journey to offer our customers and consumers nature’s finest ingredients for clean label and great tasting products, and we look forward to the next chapter with Ardian and MidOcean.”

The transaction is anticipated to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.

With seven offices in Europe and America, Ardian’s Buyout team acquires high-quality mid and large-cap companies across Western Europe and North America, applying transformational and multi-cultural buy-and-build strategies, which enable portfolio companies to become global leaders in their respective sectors. Since expanding into the U.S. two years ago, Ardian’s U.S. Buyout team has invested more than $1.2 billion of equity in three platforms.

J.P. Morgan, Houlihan Lokey, and Evercore are serving as financial advisors to Ardian and Weil Gotshal & Manges is serving as the firm’s legal advisor.

Houlihan Lokey is serving as financial advisors to MidOcean Partners and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP is serving as the firm’s legal advisors.

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

  • Ardian

    • Financial advisors: J.P. Morgan, Houlihan Lokey, and Evercore
    • Legal advisor: Weil Gotshal & Manges

  • MidOcean Partners:

    • Financial advisor: Houlihan Lokey
    • Legal advisors: Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP

ABOUT ARDIAN

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$114 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 780 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: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.
Follow Ardian on Twitter @Ardian

www.ardian.com

ABOUT MIDOCEAN PARTNERS

MidOcean Partners is a premier New York-based alternative asset manager specializing in middle-market private equity and alternative credit investments. Since its inception in 2003, MidOcean Private Equity has targeted investments in high-quality middle-market companies in the consumer and business services sectors. MidOcean Credit Partners was launched in 2009 and currently manages a series of alternative credit strategies, collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), and customized separately managed accounts.

www.midoceanpartners.com/

ABOUT FLORIDA FOOD PRODUCTS

Founded in 1954 and based in Eustis, Florida, FFP operates a multifunctional production facility and is involved in manufacturing of food protection ingredients, vegetable juice concentrates and derivatives used in a multitude of food applications from savory to beverages, sports nutrition and meats, and are marketed globally. The Company has offered a portfolio of healthy, natural, clean label solutions for over 60 years. For additional information, please visit Florida Food Products’ website

www.floridafood.com

Press contact

ARDIAN

The Neibart Group EMMA MURPHY

emurphy@neibartgroup.com +1 347 968 6800

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Syclef enters exclusive negotiations with GEA Refrigeration Technologies for the acquisition of GEA Refrigeration France SAS

Ardian

21 September 2021 Expansion France, Rousset

Rousset, September 21st, 2021 – Syclef, a leading French player specialized in the installation and maintenance of refrigeration systems, announces that it has entered exclusive negotiations to acquire GEA Réfrigération France SAS, the French refrigeration installation and maintenance business of GEA Refrigeration Technologies, a specialist in industrial refrigeration, heating and sustainable energy solutions for a wide range of industries.

With more than 230 employees, GEA Réfrigération France SAS has strong complementarities with Syclef in terms of expertise (industrial refrigeration) and geographical location. The two companies also share strong values of technical culture and customer proximity. As part of the project the Syclef group intends to make additional investments, particularly in human resources, to continue to develop GEA Réfrigération France SAS. The group will continue to maintain a partnership with GEA Refrigeration Technologies, particularly for the supply of components.

This potential acquisition is in line with Syclef’s development strategy, which has gradually consolidated its presence through organic growth and acquisitions. Since 2015, the group has strongly accelerated its external growth strategy with the successive integration of 17 entities through build-up operations.

Hervé Lohéac, Chairman of Syclef, said: “I am convinced that our complementarities and synergies will enable us to enrich each other’s technical expertise, to develop and to better serve our customers. Once the negotiations are successful, we look forward to the arrival of all GEA Refrigeration France employees among us.”

The transaction remains subject to the information and consultation process with the relevant employee representative bodies, in accordance with applicable laws, as well as the approval of the antitrust authorities.

 

ABOUT SYCLEF

Founded in 2003, Syclef is a French leader in the installation and maintenance of refrigeration systems. The group is specialized in medium and large refrigeration installations, in industrial refrigeration (logistics platforms, storage warehouses, food processing…), commercial refrigeration (supermarkets, convenience stores…) and air conditioning. Syclef’s customer base relies on Syclef to manage its complex and critical refrigeration systems. The group benefits from a key player position in the energy transition through the use of innovative sustainable technologies such as natural refrigerant fluids.

http://www.syclef.fr

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS

  • SYCLEF & ARDIAN

    • Syclef: Hervé Lohéac, Frédéric Secchi, Nicolas Pondicq-Cassou
    • Ardian Expansion: Marie Arnaud-Battandier, Arthur de Salins, Thomas Grétéré
    • Legal advisor: Willkie Farr & Gallagher (Christophe Garaud, Mathilde Vannson, Sarah Bibas)
    • Financial Due Diligence: KPMG (Olivier Boumendil, Benjamin Patte, Laura Mahdavian, Quentin Deliry)
    • Carve out Due Diligence: KPMG (Damien Allo, Antoine Viry, Paul Mas, Louis-Arthur Pele)
    • IT Due Diligence: KPMG (Josselin du Plessis, Hugo Carreira, Adrien Noireau)
    • Legal, fiscal and social Due Diligence: KPMG (Xavier Houard, Florence Olivier, Albane Eglinger)
    • Commercial Due Diligence: Indéfi (Julien Berger, Matthias Burn, Yannick Hamida, Nicolas Hamann)
    • Insurance Due Diligence: Finaxy (Deborah Hauchemaille)

Press contact

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Audax Private Equity Acquires GCX Mounting Solutions

Audax Group

Audax Private Equity (“Audax”) and GCX Mounting Solutions today announced the formation of a strategic partnership under which Audax acquired a majority stake in GCX. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Based in Petaluma, CA, GCX is the global leader in the design and manufacturing of healthcare-focused, mission-critical equipment mounting and mobility solutions, including branded-arms, mounts, and roll stands. Products are engineered for reliability and quality and sold to medical device OEMs and directly to hospitals. GCX has a 50-year history of organic growth and 330-plus employees worldwide, with offices in North America, Europe, Japan, and Taiwan.

“We are very excited to be part of the Audax family and look forward to benefiting from their established history within the healthcare and medical device sector,” said Del France, Chief Executive Officer of GCX. “The Audax model is a great fit for GCX. Our customers, suppliers, and employees stand to benefit greatly from this partnership. This enables the next stage of growth for the organization through investment in customers, products, channel, and merger & acquisition opportunities, all while retaining our core values and commitment to quality, service, and innovation.”

“GCX is a longstanding leader in the healthcare-focused mounting and mobility solutions market, celebrating 50-plus years of success underpinned by commitment to quality, service, and innovation,” said David Wong, Managing Director of Audax.

“We have acquired a set of products and capabilities that are best in breed, and an organization with an exceptional culture. We believe that GCX is well positioned to execute on organic growth opportunities and complete strategic acquisitions, and we look forward to partnering with Del and the team as GCX enters is next phase of growth,” said Young Lee, Managing Director of Audax.

William Blair & Company acted as financial advisor and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe served as legal counsel to GCX. Ropes & Gray, LLP served as legal counsel, and Robert W. Baird & Co. and Stifel served as advisors to Audax.

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3i invests in Dutch Bakery to accelerate international growth

3I

3i Group plc (“3i”) announces that it has agreed to invest in Dutch Bakery, a leading bakery group specialised in home bake-off bread and snack products.

Headquartered in Tilburg, Dutch Bakery operates six bakeries across the Netherlands. 3i is investing to drive the company’s international growth strategy in the fragmented European private label market for bake-off products. In addition, 3i will support Dutch Bakery in the continued investments in its home markets.

The business has a leading position in the Dutch market, where its private label customers include all major Dutch food retailers. The company offers a leading, innovative and comprehensive assortment, which is produced sustainably and with natural ingredients. Dutch Bakery differentiates itself through the breadth of its product offering, which enables retailers to develop a structurally attractive home bake-off category.

The bake-off market for bread and snack products is an attractive and growing market, with significant barriers to entry and increasing penetration of high-quality modified atmosphere packaging products (which extend the shelf life of fresh food products). Key market drivers include premiumisation, growth in e-commerce and new home eating moments due to increased time spent at home.

Bastiaan Peer, Director 3i, commented: “We are excited to back the Dutch Bakery management team. They have put the right foundations in place for continued future growth, both organically and through a targeted buy-and-build strategy, and we look forward to working with them to realise this ambition.”

Raoul Vorage, CEO Dutch Bakery, said: “3i has extensive experience in the private label market through its investments in Royal Sanders and Refresco and a proven track record of growing companies internationally, both of which will be of great benefit to us. We look forward to working with them to build on our success to date and create a leading European player in the bake-off market.”

The transaction is subject to customary antitrust approvals.

 

Download this press release  

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Egeria divests Dutch Bakery after a period of strong growth

Egeria

Amsterdam, 20 September 2021 – Egeria and 3i Group plc (“3i”) have reached agreement on the sale of Dutch Bakery, a leading bakery group specialised in home bake-off bread and snack products. Closing is expected to take place in October, subject to approval of the antitrust authorities.

Raoul Vorage, CEO Dutch Bakery: “We are excited about this new chapter for Dutch Bakery and are looking forward to creating a leading European player in the bake-off market together with our new shareholder. The partnership with Egeria has helped us to grow Dutch Bakery further and to professionalize our way of working over the last years, which forms a strong basis for the future of our company. We are grateful to Egeria for their support.”

Sander van Keken, Director at Egeria: “Dutch Bakery has been part of Egeria since 2017 and we are proud to have supported the company in growing and solidifying their business. We believe that the company is in a good position for the future and are happy that we have found a strong new partner for the next growth phase of Dutch Bakery. It was our pleasure to team up with the management team of Dutch Bakery and would like to thank all employees for their continued dedication to the company.”

Bastiaan Peer, Director at 3i: “We are excited to back the Dutch Bakery management team. They have put the right foundations in place for continued future growth, both organically and through a targeted buy-and-build strategy. We look forward to working with them to realise this ambition.”

About Dutch Bakery
Dutch Bakery has a leading position in the Dutch market for bake-off bread and bread-based snacks. The company was founded in 1936 and operates bakeries in Alkmaar, Eindhoven, Rijen, Tilburg, Waalwijk and Budel. The company is specialised in consumer bake-off bread and annually bakes nearly a billion rolls, including mini-baguettes, Kaiser buns, croissants, baguettes, sausage rolls and pastry with sausage filling. The products of Dutch Bakery are sold to major food retailers, both in the Netherlands and abroad.

About Egeria
Established in 1997, Egeria is an independent Dutch investment company focused on mid-sized companies in the Netherlands and DACH region. Egeria invests in healthy businesses with an enterprise value of between EUR 50 million and EUR 350 million, and believes in building businesses jointly with entrepreneurial management teams (Boldly Building Together). Egeria Private Equity Funds has interests in 13 companies in the Netherlands and Germany, while Egeria Evergreen has investments in 7 companies. Egeria’s portfolio companies generate combined revenues of more than EUR 2 billion and employ circa 12,000 people. Other activities include Egeria Real Estate Investments, Egeria Real Estate Development and Egeria Listed Investments. In 2018 Egeria launched Egeria Do, a corporate giving program that supports projects in the world of art, culture and society, but also within Egeria’s portfolio companies.

About 3i
3i is an international investment manager focused on mid-market Private Equity and Infrastructure. Its core investment markets are northern Europe and North America. For further information, please visit: www.3i.com

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Boyne Capital Has Acquired A&A Global Imports, Inc.

Boyne Capital

Miami, FL – (September 17, 2021) Boyne Capital (“Boyne”) is pleased to announce that one of its affiliates has partnered with management to acquire A&A Global Imports, Inc. (“A&A” or the “Company”), a leading supplier of packaging materials and ancillary products to the high-growth medical and recreational cannabis industry.

The Company sells child-resistant, government-regulated packaging to cannabis cultivators, processors, and dispensaries, as well as pharmacies and retail shops. Additionally, A&A provides marketing services and custom printing capabilities, offering its customers the ability to enhance their branding through customized packaging with logos and artwork designed by A&A’s creative team.

Since 2011, the Company has provided a one-stop-shop for its customers, offering approximately 2,500 products, including packaging products (such as glass jars, pop top bottles, vials, tubes, and retail exit bags) and other ancillary goods. A&A has in-house product design capabilities and has patented a portfolio of products from specialized child-proof bags, jars, and boxes to innovative multi-use closures. Further, the Company holds a strategic set of trademarks and copyrights, making it the only source for certain popular packaging products.

Boyne Managing Partner and CEO, Derek McDowell, said, “A&A maintains a uniquely strong market position, having trailblazed the cannabis ancillary space over a decade ago.  Meeting the A&A team and understanding their growth trajectory and loyal customer base gave us much confidence in the partnership.  We are excited to work with David Aryan, A&A’s Founder and CEO, and his proven management team to continue growing the company and supporting expansion efforts, both organic and through acquisition.”

 

Mr. Aryan said, “the Boyne team has been excellent to work with throughout this process, and they have already demonstrated their value as we begin to pursue our ambitious goals together as partners.  A&A has immense opportunity in front of it, and we look forward to collaborating on strategic initiatives to further accelerate our growth as the best-in-class supplier to the leading names in cannabis.”

The A&A transaction represents a recent platform investment in BCM Fund II (“Fund”). Boyne Capital is dedicated to investing in the lower middle market sector, specifically companies with revenues of less than $100 million and with EBITDA of $3 million to $15 million.

About Boyne: Boyne Capital is a Florida-based private equity firm focused on investments in lower middle market companies. Founded in 2006, Boyne has successfully invested in a broad range of industries, including healthcare services, consumer products, manufacturing, and business & financial services. Beyond financial resources, Boyne provides industry and operational expertise to its portfolio companies and partners with management to drive company performance and growth. Boyne specializes in providing the capital necessary to fund corporate growth and facilitate owners and shareholders’ partial or full exit. For additional information, please visit www.boynecapital.com.

Contact Joshua Bilmes at jbilmes@boynecapital.com or 786.539.2245 regarding new opportunities.

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Gimv leads CHF55.5M ($61M) Series A financing in Anjarium Biosciences to develop novel non-viral gene therapies.

GIMV

16/09/2021 – 08:00 | Portfolio

Anjarium Biosciences AG (“Anjarium”), a biotech company focused on creating and delivering a new class of non-viral gene therapies today announced the closing of a CHF55.5M ($61M) Series A financing. The round was co-led by Gimv and Abingworth, with significant participation from Omega Funds, Pfizer Ventures and Surveyor (a Citadel company).

Anjarium’s innovative approach leverages breakthrough science and expertise at the interface of genetic medicine, synthetic biology and nanoparticle engineering to rationally design and produce tissue-targeted gene therapies optimized to improve patient outcomes in a range of serious genetic diseases.

The Company’s unique platform combines proprietary DNA-based gene vectors, natural and synthetic nanoparticle delivery modalities, including its novel Hybridosome™ technology and cost efficient as well as scalable manufacturing solutions.

Anjarium’s approach has the potential to deliver more predictable, lasting, and inclusionary ways to tackle genetic disease throughout a patient’s lifetime. Further, this new class of gene therapy provides the opportunity to address key shortcomings of current viral gene therapy development by creating medicines with reduced immunogenicity, increased drug payload capacity, enhanced targeted delivery, and individualized multiple dosing.

The proceeds from the Series A financing will enable Anjarium to expand its team, develop its ground-breaking platform as well as push several therapeutic pipeline programs towards clinic.

“As the limitations of conventional viral-vector based gene therapies to deliver optimal patient outcomes become increasingly evident, a fully non-viral approach represents an exciting new therapeutic opportunity,” said Joël de Beer, Founder and CSO of Anjarium Biosciences. “Backed by this syndicate of leading investors, the Anjarium team is looking forward to continue to create and deliver solutions for patients beyond what current gene therapy platforms can address, tackling more diseases, more precisely and more personalized.

Bram Vanparys, Partner at Gimv: “We are very excited to support Anjarium as its groundbreaking science, platform and manufacturing setup holds very high potential to change the way we approach gene therapy today – with the possibility to deliver products with much better outcomes and durability.”

Thomas Harth, Senior Associate at Gimv, added: “We have been on the lookout for a novel gene therapy approach that could offer individualized multiple dosing in a safe, targeted and efficient manner and believe to have found this in Anjarium’ s innovating platform approach. As part of Gimv’ s strategy to build leading life science companies, we are very thrilled to support the Anjarium team to the next stage of development.”

For further information, we refer to the companies press release in the attachment.

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DIF Capital Partners opens New York office and bolsters team with two senior hires

DIF

Continuing to build on the firm’s strong current momentum, DIF Capital Partners (“DIF”) today announces the opening of an office in New York (US) and the hiring of two senior professionals to bolster its investment and investor relations & business development teams.

The New York office will further deepen DIF’s US presence and its team will work closely with the team in the Toronto office which was established in 2012 to cover the North American market. The opening of the New York office is the 10th local office in DIF’s global platform. Over the past ca. 10 years DIF invested more than USD 1 billion in North America across 18 different investments. The New York and Toronto offices are led by Marko Kremer, partner and Head of DIF’s North American franchise.

Kanan Joshi is joining the New York office as a Senior Director and as DIF’s first US hire. She joins the firm to spearhead its investments and strategy in the US digital infrastructure sector. She brings over 15 years of experience and has a strong track record in sourcing and investing in digital infrastructure assets. Most recently Kanan was the Head of Telecom Infrastructure at Upper Bay. Before that she worked at Digital Bridge and Deutsche Bank in New York, where she was responsible for the origination, structuring and execution of telecom investments across North America, Latin America and Asia. Kanan has deep domain expertise in data centers, cell towers and telecom industries, and enjoys long-standing relationships with established management teams. She has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Mumbai.

In addition, DIF’s global investor relations & business development team is announcing expansion with the hire of Luuk Veenstra, who joins the team as a Senior Director to cover a part of Europe and the Middle-East. Luuk has joined the DIF Schiphol office from M&G in New York, where he established the institutional business development & distribution business for North America. He was previously based in Amsterdam, working with the leading institutional investors in the Benelux. Before M&G, Luuk worked for PGGM’s infrastructure investment team, and for RBC and NIBC in various positions and locations globally, including 10 years in London. Luuk holds an MSc in Monetary Economics from the University of Groningen.

Wim Blaasse, Managing Partner: “Establishing an office in New York is part of our global strategy to establish a strong local presence in the key countries DIF invests in. We are also more than excited to welcome Kanan and Luuk to our firm. We are delighted to have recruited two such high calibre professionals to strengthen DIF’s investment and investor relations team. DIF expects to leverage Kanan’s unique background to help us stay at the forefront of emerging trends, partner with management teams and maximize value for our investors. Luuk will play a key role in further developing DIF’s LP network to support the growth of the DIF platform leveraging on his global distribution, business development and infrastructure investment experience.”

About DIF Capital Partners

DIF Capital Partners is a leading global independent fund manager, with more than €9.0 billion in assets under management across nine closed-end infrastructure funds and several co-investment vehicles. DIF Capital Partners invests in greenfield and operational infrastructure assets located primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Australasia through two complementary strategies:

  • Traditional DIF funds, of which DIF Infrastructure Fund VI is the latest vintage, target equity investments with long-term contracted or regulated income streams including public-private partnerships, concessions, utilities, and (renewable) energy projects.
  • DIF CIF funds target equity investments in small to mid-sized economic infrastructure assets in the telecom, energy, and transportation sectors.

DIF Capital Partners has a team of over 160 professionals, based in ten offices located in Amsterdam (Schiphol), Frankfurt, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, New York, Paris, Santiago, Sydney, and Toronto. For further information please visit www.dif.eu

Contact:

Allard Ruijs, Partner

Email: a.ruijs@dif.eu

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