Claret Capital has today announced its Claret European Growth Capital Fund III (‘Fund III’) has reached a final close of €297 million. The fund will be used to back innovative startups in the tech and life sciences sectors.
Whilst talk of economic uncertainty and hardship continues to hit the headlines, there are reasons to remain cautiously optimistic and there are still exciting developments going on that will promote innovation and businesses to scale. And Claret Capital has just provided one such sign of optimism – announcing the close of its Fund III at €297 million, exceeding the original €250 million target.
Claret European Growth Capital Fund III (‘Fund III’)
The final close of Fund III includes commitments from a broad range of leading institutional investors who continue to support Claret within the debt financing market. Repeat investors include EIF, British Business Investments, RAG-Stiftung, Certior Capital and KfW Capital.
Allied Irish Banks, Aozora Bank, Banca March, HNA, and the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), as well as entrepreneurs and industry experts, make up the new cohort of investors.
Fund III made its first investment in March 2021 and has since welcomed 29 businesses into the portfolio. With this close, Claret will continue to provide low dilution growth capital to innovative European companies.
Johan Kampe, Managing Partner of Claret commented:“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.”
Claret Capital Partners
Since 2013, Claret has been backing growth stage businesses from across Europe. The firm provides innovative debt solutions to help entrepreneurs and private equity investors grow their companies while minimising dilution. The team provides flexible three-to-five-year facilities that start at €2 million and can scale up to €50 million and each loan is evaluated on an independent basis.
To date, the firm has backed over 150 companies and invested more than half a billion euros, making them a significant contributor to Europe’s current thriving innovation landscape.
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.
Fund III will continue to invest in innovative growth stage technology and life science businesses throughout Europe – primarily to support organic growth and M&A. Taken together, the final close of Fund III and the co-invest vehicles enable Claret to support businesses with over €500 million of capital in the next three years. It’s expected that this will support an additional 50-60 new companies.
David Bateman, Managing Partner of Claret, added: “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.”
