| | | | | | | It's getting better all the time: The apocalypse was avoided (for now) and the credit markets have improved, I'm hearing. "It's not the same amount of flow as a year ago but it's better than a month ago or two months," a credit market source said to me yesterday. More healthcare assets are being brought to market, a different source said. The challenge now is to bridge "seller valuation expectations from last year (that's pre-fall)" to the market reality of today, the second person said. "We are seeing debt markets improve but more progress needs to be seen," the second source said. What do you think? Are you feeling better? Deals: Fierce competition in the M&A market combined with high prices forced private equity to get creative in their dealmaking last year, according to Bain & Company's Global Private Equity Report 2016. GPs are trying to deploy a record $1.3 trillion in dry powder, the report said. Public to private deals made a comeback in 2015, Bain said, as well as teaming up with strategics in transactions to mitigate risk. "For PE funds, having a strategic coinvestor provides a built-in exit strategy, enabling them to sell their stakes to the corporate partner when the timing is right," Bain said in the report. Read Bain's report here. Caspersen: Chris has a story on the arrest and charging of former Park Hill Group executive Andrew Caspersen earlier this week. The case isn't an indictment of the broader restructuring business but just one bad seed. Read Chris' story here. Check out the story here. Funding: Mashable has raised $15 million in funding led by Turner, a division of Time Warner. It took me a while to get used to seeing cat videos — and I love a good cat video — on Mashable when I would go there to see tech stuff. Still, glad they got this. Read the brief here. I'll be back on Monday. We'll be in April by then. As usual, i f you have a comment, a tip, or something nice to say email me here at lbeltran@buyoutsinsider.com. If you have a complaint, email Chris at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com. -- Luisa | | | | Today's Take | | | | Trivest makes 10x on Take 5 exit to Roark Capital Trivest Partners made a 10x cash-on-cash return with its sale of Take 5 Oil Change Inc to a Roark Capital portfolio company as one of the best-performers in the 35-year history of the firm, according to a source. Driven Brands, a Roark-controlled automotive-franchise company with $2.1 billion in sales, paid an undisclosed sum for New... Read more... Caspersen case not an indictment of wider restructuring business The arrest and charging of former Park Hill Group executive Andrew Caspersen for an alleged scheme related to a private-equity-fund restructuring is not a sign of broader deficiencies in this growing part of the secondaries market, sources said. Instead, the situation was a one-off event and not an indictment of the wider business of restructuring... Read more... Ontario Teachers' nets 32.3 pct through PE, VC portfolio The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan's private-capital portfolio returned 32.3 percent last year, nearly doubling the 18.1 percent return generated by its benchmark, according to its annual report. Ontario Teachers' private-capital portfolio includes its commitments to private- equity and venture-capital funds, as well as its direct companies. The C$28.4 billion ($21.9 billion) portfolio has generated a... Read more... 5 Qs with John Albright, managing partner of Relay Ventures One of the co-founders of Toronto-based Relay chats about what he sees in mobile tech Read more... | The Summit for Middle Market Debt Finance
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| | | | VC Deals | | | | Artis Ventures, VCs betting you'll love high-tech Juicero Venture-backed Juicero emerged from stealth today, makes its high-tech juicer available for sale. The company has raised $86.5 million in two previous rounds and a Series C is expected to be announced soon. Read more... Mashable raises $15 mln Mashable said Thursday it raised $15 million in funding led by Turner, a division of Time Warner. Also participating were returning investors Time Warner Investments, Updata Partners, David Jones, and Mike Lazerow, with participation from R&R Venture Partners, a fund created by Dick Parsons and Ronald Lauder. Mashable is a media company. Read more... SkySquirrel Tech raises $1 mln SkySquirrel Technologies has closed a $1 million investment round. This includes a $500,000 investment from Innovacorp and $500,000 from an undisclosed Ontario-based private investor. Halifax-based SkySquirrel is a crop-analytics company that develops drone-based technology for monitoring crop health. Read more... Expway raises $3.4 mln Expway said it raised 3 million euros ($3.4 million) in capital, half of which came from NTT DOCOMO Ventures. The other half came from current investors including Innovation Capital, I-Source, TechFund and Isatis Capital. Sunnyvale, California-based Expway is a wireless multicast provider. Read more... GoReact raises $4 mln GoReact has received a $4 million growth investment from Five Elms Capital. Orem, Utah-based GoReact provides a video-based skills-training platform that is used in classrooms. Read more... Gauss Surgical raises $12.6 mln Gauss Surgical Inc said Wednesday that it raised $12.6 million in Series B funding led by Providence Ventures, the investment arm of Providence Health & Services. Also participating were Jump Capital as well as existing investors Promus Ventures, LifeForce Ventures, Summation Health Ventures and the StanfordStartX Fund. Gauss Surgical is a medical technology company based in Los Altos, California. Read more... Zavante raises $45 mln to develop injectable antibiotic Zavante Therapeutics Inc announced that it closed a $45 million Series A round, which the San Diego company will use to develop an injectable antibiotic to treat multidrug resistant (MDR) pathogens. The round was comprised of $35 million from new investors and $10 million from the conversion of outstanding convertible notes. It was co-led by Frazier Healthcare Partners and Longitude Capital, with participation from Aisling Capital. As part of the deal, Frazier Healthcare Managing General Partner Patrick Heron and Longitude Capital Managing Director David Hirsch will join Zavante's board of directors. Read more... Intel Capital leads $6 mln round for Germany's Data Artisans Data Artisans, which makes software to speed up big data analytics, announced it has raised a Series A round of 5.5 million euros ($6 million) led by Intel Capital with participation from Tengelmann Ventures and existing investor b-to-v Partners. The Berlin-based company has now raised $7.3 million in total funding. Read more... Zuckerberg and other tech titans pour $50 mln into Asana Asana, a maker of project management and collaboration software, announced that it has raised $50 million from a Who's Who of Silicon Valley tech luminaries, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The Series C round values the San Francisco-based company at $600 million, up from a valuation of $280 million for its $28 million Series B in 2012, TechCrunch reported. To date, Asana has raised a total of $88.2 million, according to CrunchBase. The new round was led by Sam Altman, president of tech incubator Y Combinator. In addition to Zuckerberg, other participants included Asana's founders, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and early Facebook employee Justin Rosenstein; 8VC, a VC firm led by Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale; Aditya Agarwal and Ruchi Sanghvi, VP and former VP of Dropbox; Priscilla Chan, CEO of The Primary School; Adam D'Angelo, CEO of Quora; Founders Fund; Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos; Andrew Mason, CEO of Detour and founder of Groupon; Roger McNamee, co-founder of Elevation Partners; and Eric Ries, author of the book "The Lean Startup." Read more... PowerInbox raises $6.5 mln PowerInbox has raised $6.5 million in a Series A round led by Battery Ventures, Genesis Partners and new investor Maverick Ventures. Previous investors also took part. New York-based PowerInBox provides personalized email technology for marketers, agencies and publishers. Read more... Cockroach scoops up $20 mln New York-based Cockroach Labs, which provides open source infrastructure and is launching an OS database solution, has raised $20 million in Series A1 funding from Benchmark, Index Ventures and GV. As part of the funding, Mike Volpi of new investor Index is joining Benchmark's Peter Fenton as a member of the board. The company previously raised a $6.25 million Series A round from Benchmark, GV, FirstMark Capital and Sequoia Capital. Read more... | | | | | | | | Back to top | | Ceridian raises $150 mln Ceridian is receiving another $150 million from shareholders including Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, Fidelity National Financial Ventures Group and Ceridian management, including CEO David Ossip. Ceridian, of Toronto, is a human capital management technology company. Read more... Victory Park puts pizza place Giordano's on block: Reuters (Reuters) Victory Park Capital Advisors LLC has put Chicago-based restaurant chain Giordano's up for sale, according to people familiar with the matter. Victory Park, which paid $52 million to buy the company out of bankruptcy in 2011, has hired investment bank Piper Jaffray Companies to run a sale process, the people said. They suggested that Giordano's could fetch more than $100 million in a sale. Read more... Clearview takes majority stake in Controlled Products Clearview Capital acquired a majority stake in Controlled Products, LLC, which makes synthetic turf for sports, landscape and leisure uses. The transaction closed on March 22 and included an investment from the management team. Controlled Products is the sixth platform investment made by Clearview Capital Fund III. Read more... Pegasus invests $53 mln in medical nutrition company PanTheryx Private equity firm Pegasus Capital Advisors LP has invested $53 million in PanTheryx Inc, a medical nutrition company based in Boulder, Colorado. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. PanTheryx said it would use the capital to launch a product to treat infectious diarrhea, for ongoing research and development and possible acquisitions. Read more... Take 5 Oil Change sale marks sixth exit for Trivest Fund IV Trivest Partners today announced the sale of Take 5 Oil Change Inc to Roark Capital portfolio company Driven Brands. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Trivest said the sale "represents the sixth exit event in Trivest Fund IV and is one of its most successful investments to date." Trivest bought Take 5 from the company's founder in 2011. Under its ownership, Take 5 "nearly tripled its store count, sales and profitability," Trivest said in a statment. 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| | IPOs | | | | Back to top | | VC-backed SendGrid aims to be "IPO-worthy" next year: Reuters (Reuters) SendGrid, an email service company backed by Bain Capital and Bessemer Venture Partners, is targeting revenue of $100 million by 2017 and expects to become profitable in the second half of this year. The company also aims to be "IPO-worthy" by next year, CEO Sameer Dholakia said. Read more... | | | | |
Back to top | | Brammer Biopharmaceutical merging with Florida Biologix Brammer Biopharmaceuticals is merging with Florida Biologix to create Brammer Bio. Financial terms weren't announced. Brammer Bio is a gene therapy biologics contract development and manufacturing organization. Ampersand Capital Partners owns a majority of Florida Biologix and is making an investment in the combined company. Read more... KKR to exit Scout24 Schweiz Swiss Mobiliar is buying a 50 percent stake in Scout24 Schweiz that was held by KKR and other shareholders. Financial terms weren't announced. Ringier AG will continue to maintain control of Scout24. Scout24 is a Swiss online marketplaces for motor vehicles, real estate and general classifieds. Read more... | | Firms & Funds | | |
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Back to top | | Jo-Ann Fabric names Miquelon EVP, CFO Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores said Wednesday it named Wade Miquelon to the roles of executive vice president and chief financial officer. Miquelon recently served as the executive vice president, CFO and president of international for Walgreen Co. Jo-Ann Fabric is a portfolio company of Leonard Green & Partners. Read more... SEC fines, bans biotech VC Burrill for theft (Reuters) Biotech venture capitalist G. Steven Burrill and his firm Burrill Capital Management LLC agreed to pay $5.8 million to settle SEC charges that he stole investor money to fund a "lavish lifestyle," the SEC said. Read more... Nadler named executive-in-residence at Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus has named Jay Nadler executive-in-residence in its Technology, Media and Telecommunications and Industrials and Business Services Groups. Nadler most recently served as Chief Operating Officer of Interactive Data Corp. Read more... | | Odds & Ends + Hot Links | | |
Back to top | | PE HUB First Read In First Read, Microsoft is trying to create all kinds of bots with different personalities; Whoopi Goldberg is coming out with a line of marijuana-infused products, under the brand name Whoopi & Maya, to reduce menstrual pain and cramps; and Buddy, the bucket list dog, has died with one wish to go. Read more... |
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