Weekly People & Company News
- Tom Donnelly was appointed CEO of Supreme Group, a platform company focused on providing business and commercialization services to a range of life science and healthcare companies. Supreme Group was formed following Trinity Hunt Partners‘ investment in digital agency Supreme Optimization. Most recently, Donnelly served as chief growth officer for Medical Knowledge Group LLC, a former portfolio company of Court Square Capital Partners and Aisling Capital, which was acquired by Novo Holdings A/S.
- Jeremy Wright was added as an operating partner by Princeton Equity Group, a private equity firm focused on franchise and multi-unit companies. Wright’s responsibilities include providing tactical support to the firm’s portfolio companies, partnering with management teams and helping further institutionalize the firm’s operating resources. Most recently, Wright served as an operating partner at Atlantic Street Capital.
- Jason Myler was added as a new managing director to Brown Gibbons Lang & Co.’s technology team. BGL is an investment bank and financial advisory firm. Myler has spent his over 25 year career advising vertical software clients in buy- and sell-side M&A, IPO, private capital raising and debt capital markets transactions. Prior to joining BGL, Myler was a managing director at Stifel in its technology group focused on vertical market software.
- Eric Menell and Gian Piero Sammartano were appointed by JP Morgan to co-lead the new sports investment banking coverage group, according to Bloomberg. The move to create a dedicated team follows a decision by Goldman Sachs last year to create a dedicated sports unit under the leadership of Greg Carey and Dave Dase.
- Rodney Reid, Moelis & Co.’s global head of private funds advisory, is leaving the firm. Reid, a managing director, joined Moelis in April 2021 after working at Evercore and UBS. He led the group that advises private equity firms on fundraising for new pools of capital and secondary transactions. The firm’s private funds advisory unit has had several senior departures in recent months. Last year, managing directors Zaid Abdul-Aleem, Patrick Dunleavy and Chris Kirsten left.
- Gannett Fleming, an engineering and infrastructure services company and a portfolio company of OceanSound Partners, has purchased DEC, a Texas-based water and transportation engineering services provider. DEC is a civil engineering firm with experience in transportation, water, wastewater and hydrology. The company focuses on safe water and wastewater systems, subsidence projects, drainage improvements, and program management.
- Xponance Alts Solutions, a subsidiary of $16 billion asset manager Xponance, has made a GP minority investment in the Copia Group as well as an LP commitment to Copia’s first private credit offering. Copia provides deal structures that are customized to portfolio company business needs. The partnership provides Copia with financial resources of XAlts to grow its investment platform and drive its capabilities in private credit investing.
- Francisco Partners, a private equity giant, has acquired Jama Software, a requirements management and traceability services provider, from shareholders including Insight Partners and Madrona Ventures for $1.2 billion. Fields such as fuel cells, electrification, space, software-defined vehicles, surgical robotics and more work with Jama Connect requirements management software to minimize the risk of defects.
- Cato Networks, an Israeli-based cybersecurity firm, is said to be prepping for a NY IPO to raise more than $500M. The company was valued at more than $3B last year through a private funding round from investors including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Adams Street Partners and Softbank Vision Fund. Reuters said the public listing could come by early next year.
- Spring Capital has agreed to sell Catenda, to fellow private equity firm GRO. Catenda, which was founded in 2009 as a spin-off from SINTEF, specializes in building information management and common data environment software. The platform aims to improve collaboration from construction design through building operations, making the industry data-driven and transparent.
- Frontline Ventures, a London, UK, Dublin, Ireland, and San Francisco, CA-based venture capital firm focused on B2B software companies, raised $200M across two funds – Frontline Growth and Frontline Seed. Led by partners Will Prendergast, Zoe Chambers and William McQuillan, the Seed fund helps European-headquartered companies scale from pre-seed/Seed to Series A–and expand into the U.S. The vehicle has made over 80 investments in European startups over the past decade, of which more than 70% have advanced to Series A funding and 60% expanded to the U.S.
- RA Capital Management led a $175M Series B funding round for Capstan Therapeutics, a biotech company dedicated to advancing in vivo reprogramming of cells through RNA delivery using targeted lipid nanoparticles (tLNP). In conjunction with the funding, Nanna Luneborg, General Partner at Forbion, will join Capstan’s Board of Directors. Capstan is led by CEO Laura Shawver.
- Morgan Stanley Private Credit provided $50M in debt funding for Fetch, a Madison, WI-based provider of a rewards app. The company intends to use the capital to expand product innovation, development in the platform’s proprietary A.I. and machine learning technologies, investment in growing the app’s user base, and hiring. The company is led by CEO and founder Wes Schroll.
- GoPoint Ventures led a $5M funding round for Buzz Solutions, an AI company that inspects and protects energy infrastructure. Blackhorn Ventures and MaC Venture Capital also participated in the round. Led by CEO Kaitlyn Albertoli, Buzz works with several large utilities across North America, including the New York Power Authority and Southern California Edison. The investment brought the total raised to $10.7M with a previous round of $3.3M from 2022 and two $1.2M convertible notes in 2020 and in early 2023.
- Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital and Lightspeed Faction co-led a $60M Series A funding for Figure Markets, a San Francisco, CA-based company working for private capital markets. Led by Mike Cagney, CEO, and June Ou, Figure Markets aims to develop a decentralized financial marketplace where investors can trade a wide range of blockchain-native assets from crypto to stocks to alternative investments.
