Claret Capital (Claret Capital Partners Limited), the London-based Pan-European growth capital provider, announced the closing Claret European Growth Capital Fund III (‘Fund III’) at €297M. The company has surpassed the original target of €250M.
The final close of Fund III comes from a broad range of institutional investors, including EIF, British Business Investments, RAG-Stiftung, Certior Capital, and KfW Capital.
Further, five new institutional investors, such as Allied Irish Banks, Aozora Bank, Banca March, HNA, and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), also participated.
Since the first investment from Fund III in March 2021, Claret has welcomed 29 businesses into the Fund III portfolio.
According to the company, Fund III will continue to invest in growth-stage technology and life science businesses throughout Europe, supporting organic growth and M&A.
The final close of Fund III allows Claret to invest in 50-60 new companies and support businesses with over €500M of capital in the next three years.
Besides Fund III closing, several co-investment agreements have been finalised and will offer loan facilities of up to €50M.
Backed 150 SMEs
Claret was formed through the MBO of Harbert European Growth Capital (“Harbert”) in 2020. Since then, it has backed over 150 European SMEs from a wide range of geographies across Europe.
The company’s recent exits include numerous acquisitions such as: Packlink (acquired by Auctane), Aava (acquired by Pepperl & Fuchs), Bright Computing (acquired by NVIDIA), Miss Group (bought out by Perwyn & management), SuperAwesome (acquired by EPIC Group), Synthesio (acquired by IPSOS), AdaptiveMobile (acquired by Enea), Longboat Clinical (acquired by Advarra), and Decibel (acquired by Medallia), as well as publicly held businesses Eurobio Scientific, SFC Energy.
Claret Capital funds high-growth businesses with loans size that are typically between €1M to €50M.
Johan Kampe, Managing Partner of Claret comments,“We are proud to have closed our third Fund over target and will continue to support existing portfolio companies in the Fund & future European growth businesses. From enterprise software, to fintech startups to marketplaces – we look forward to partnering with leadership teams disrupting the industries they work in. In a market where uncertainty is impacting venture capital funding, the outlook remains positive in growth financing and we’re excited to grow our portfolio business and founders.”
David Bateman, Managing Partner of Claret, adds, “We have been delighted by the response to our third fund. Closing above target underlines the tremendous opportunity that we have within the wider European tech & life sciences sector. We are seeing a strong demand for our capital from Europe’s best entrepreneurs and equity investors. We look forward to supporting the companies in the Fund and our new investments as they work to deliver their ground-breaking innovations to market.”
