Okay, time for a frank admission: Franklin Templeton is opening up access to wealth investors with a new private equity secondaries fund. The global asset manager has been given the green light by the Luxembourg regulator – the CSSF – for an open-ended product which it will co-advise alongside Lexington Partners.
It’s been quite a Bainanza this week with Bain Capital completing a $9 billion fundraise for its Global Special Situations Fund II. This puts Bain Capital in the vanguard as one of the world’s largest special situations investors as it looks to provide flexible capital solutions to companies and entrepreneurs.
Schroders is looking to give ADDed zip to its private equity business following confirmation that has entered into partnership with the Singapore-based private markets platform, ADDX. The new partnership will give accredited investors access to a semi-liquid global private equity strategy with a particular focus on the lower middle-market.
Europe’s venture capital industry is still trying to find its feet, as it recovers from a sluggish 2023. The second quarter of the year was encouraging, with $15.6 billion raised. However, Q3 was a tougher fundraising period, during which late-stage funding fell by more than 50% y-o-y. As noted by Crunchbase, early-stage funding to European start-ups declined 12% y-o-y. This hasn’t quelled appetite among VC managers, with a number of new fund launches in recent weeks including London-based Atomico, who raised $1.24 billion across two funds. On the growth side, Resurge Growth Partners recently launched a EUR120 million venture equity fund to back European and Israeli start-ups.
Total VC capital for 2024 is forecast to hit $18.8 billion and as was referenced in IPEM’s Weekly Spin, the European Union is taking measures to address the innovation gap between Europe and the US and China. The new initiative, dubbed the Trusted Investors Network, will see the EU partner with European venture capitalists to support technology investment, and help catalyze growth in deep tech companies. In total, some 71 investors with combined assets of EUR90 billion have signed up to the new initiative.
Sourcing the highest quality deals has become highly competitive, including Series A and Series B deals, as European VC firms look to deploy capital. And as was noted during the Venture & Growth Summit at IPEM Paris 2024, there are signs that Europe’s VC market is becoming more sophisticated, where deals are more downside protected. Investors are spending a lot more time on valuations, resulting in a longer time for deals to get to market. Later stage instruments like IPO warrants are being used, to realign valuations at the time of exit, as deal structures evolve.
Blackstone is hoping to hit the European jackpot as it aims to expand its private wealth business into at least two new European markets in 2025. Over the last four years the US investment behemoth has seen its private wealth AUM increase from just over $100 billion in 2020 to approximately $250 billion with Italy and France proving to be significant drivers of that growth.