Growth equity and venture capital investor Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) picked up three top European investment awards last night. SEP won the hotly contested ‘Investor of the Year’, ‘Exit of the Year’ and ‘Venture Capital Fund of the Year’ categories at the Investor AllStars Awards in London, sponsored by GP Bullhound. The awards, in their tenth year, bring together the leading lights of Europe’s venture capital and private equity communities, celebrating the best investments, lucrative exits, the financing of entrepreneurship and all-round professional excellence.
SEP was won the Venture Capital Fund of the Year category, and also Exit of the year for the sale of web traffic management company Zeus Technology to Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) for $140m.The award recognised SEP’s role in growing the business and the value for all shareholders created by the exit. SEP partner Andrew Davison was named Investor of the Year, completing a trio of awards for the firm.
SEP’s Managing Partner Calum Paterson said: “This round-off an excellent twelve months for us, and we are honoured to receive these prestigious awards. I am particularly pleased that Andrew Davison has had his excellent contribution to both SEP and our portfolio companies recognised in this way”.
Operating from offices in Glasgow and London, SEP invests in high growth potential companies in the IT, healthcare and energy sectors. During the qualifying period for the awards, SEP raised two substantial new funds, defying general market sentiment and expanding its investor base. SEP closed a £200 million growth equity and venture capital fund, SEP IV, and a £95m secondaries fund, the Environmental Energies Fund, in partnership with FTSE 100 utilities company SSE plc.
SEP’s current portfolio companies, which are predominantly based in the UK, employ more than 2,000 people in aggregate and include some of the UK’s fastest-growing technology businesses. Approximately one third of SEP’s investments are based in Scotland.
SEP’s portfolio includes flight search engine Skyscanner and CamSemi who were recently listed at numbers 17 and 29 respectively in the 2012 Times Tech Track 100.
Last week SEP announced a £12m growth equity investment in Matches, a leading UK based luxury fashion retailer.
