European governments intervene in almost half of all venture capital investments for entrepreneurs, according to new research from emlyon business school.

Cellwize, a global leader in mobile network automation and orchestration, has announced an equity funding investment from DTCP (Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners), an investment management group with c. $1.6 billion assets under management and advisory from Deutsche Telekom and other institutional investors. The investment will support Cellwize’s evolution toward enabling the immense growth of the industry with the advent of 5G.

New research by The Recruit Venture Group has uncovered the truths behind being a business owner including:

• Being made redundant or losing their job are top reasons people start their own company
• Raising capital is the main challenge that people face when setting up a company
• 1 in 10 entrepreneurs faced challenges with mental health, including self-confidence and anxiety whilst starting up their company
• Only 1% of business owners regret setting up

A survey of 1,500 UK business owners and employees has revealed that a third of business owners never planned on starting their own company, but 75% of them now believe they are in their dream job, compared to only 13% of employees being in theirs.

Maven Capital Partners and the Scottish Investment Bank have exited from Incremental Group Holdings Limited, delivering a 4.1x return for investors. This transaction is the second highly profitable exit for Maven investors in a week, following the sale of global telecom services provider Indigo-Belcom, which also delivered a return of more than four times the original investment.

Incremental is a market leading digital technology services business, employing 125 people across five sites in Glasgow, London, Manchester, Inverurie and Northwich. Incremental helps clients achieve digital transformation across core business applications, moving to the cloud and leveraging data and AI.

Maven Capital Partners and YFM Equity Partners have exited their investment in Indigo Telecom Group, to Growth Capital Partners, generating a return of 4.2x original cost to their respective funds. 

Maven led the management buyout of Indigo Telecom in 2016 and during the term of its investment supported the business with the strategic acquisition of Belcom247 in September 2017, together forming the enlarged Indigo-Belcom Group. Following the successful acquisition, revenues increased from £12 million to a forecast of over £30 million in the current year, with underlying profits increasing from £1.3 million to over £4 million.

South Wales based Indigo Telecom designs, installs and maintains telecom networks across the globe, enabling its clients to deliver fixed line, broadband, mobile and other data services to a wide variety of corporate, enterprise and consumer end users.

CrowdProperty has become the latest peer-to-peer loan originator to disclose their lending performance using Brismo’s methodology. In doing so they have become the first real estate development lender to adhere to an independent performance standard.

State Street Corporation has launched the latest findings from its Brexometer Index, a quarterly pulse survey of institutional investor sentiment on the economic impact of Brexit.

After appetite for UK assets rose to a record high in Q3 2018, the Q4 2018 survey has brought a slightly more muted response from investors, with those intending to increase their holdings falling to 15 percent from 21 percent. Consequently, the proportion of investors looking to decrease their holdings of UK assets remained unchanged at 20 percent in Q4.

First study of its kind from eFront finds that larger LPs receive more information from GPs, and best practice in private equity reporting is correlated with better performing funds

eFront, the world’s leading alternative investment management software and solutions provider, today publishes “Mind the Gap: a global survey of private equity reporting practices”. The survey, the first of its kind, and covering almost 1,800 active alternative investment funds, provides the most detailed insight yet into the state of private market investor reporting, finding that larger LPs receive more information from GPs, and best practice in private equity reporting is correlated with better performing funds.

The majority (75 per cent) of the UK’s growth businesses would prefer to move forward with Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal than face further political upheaval, according to a poll conducted by BGF, the most active investor in the UK.

Launched this week, the exclusive poll represents the views of almost 200 CEOs and Chairs of small to mid-sized business. These companies are all headquartered in the UK and pursuing expansion plans in 2019. 

Private equity experts at UK law firm Shoosmiths have advised nGAGE, one of the country’s biggest privately owned recruitment groups, on its acquisition of Henlow Recruitment Group.

nGAGE has invested in Henlow, a QuantTech recruitment business which operates in the UK, Europe, USA and Middle East, to enable it to grow its presence in international markets.

The Stanhope Entrepreneurs Fund, a growth capital fund managed by Stanhope Capital, the global investment and advisory group, has completed its first investment.

The SEF is the lead investor in a c.$90 million equity raise into S4 Capital plc (“S4”), the new era digital advertising and marketing services company established by Sir Martin Sorrell earlier this year. The capital was raised by S4 to fund the acquisition of MightyHive for a total consideration of $150 million.

MightyHive is the San Francisco-based market-leading programmatic solutions provider for forward-thinking marketers and agencies. This transaction follows S4’s acquisition of MediaMonks in July and furthers the company’s strategy of combining award winning creative production with digital media planning and buying and first party data. As part of the transaction, Stanhope Capital’s founder and CEO Daniel Pinto will join the Board of S4.

Episode 1's Eva Rez gives her insight into the opportunities and challenges around investing in Computing Architecture.