Weekly People & Company News
- Pete Lamson was added as COO and head of portfolio operation by private equity firm Volition Capital. Prior to joining Volition Capital, Lamson served as CEO of Employ, where he led a private equity-backed roll-up of four businesses in the HRTech space, including JazzHR, a company backed by Volition Capital, where Lamson also served as CEO.
- Andrea LeMay was named director of go-to-market strategy by Measrubl, an ESG data management platform for real estate. LeMay was previously head of professional services at BuildingMinds, a Berlin-based ESG software company and competitor of Measurabl. LeMay also spent time in the U.S. Army. The hire follows a $93M Series D raise and appointment of MetaProp partner Maureen Waters as CGO in 2023.
- Paul Gallant was appointed CPO by Hazeltree, an active treasury and intelligent operations technology company serving the alternative asset industry. Gallant will oversee all Hazeltree’s products, including services for hedge funds, private markets, data insights, the liquidity platform and cash and payments. He joins from BlackRock, where he was head of post-trade product management.
- Alexander Schmitz was appointed to lead Bain & Co.’s private equity practice in Europe, Middle East and Africa, succeeding Christophe De Vusser. A 21-year veteran of the firm based in Dusseldorf, Schmitz is a senior member of the firm’s partner team in its global PE practice. Most recently, he served as head of Bain’s PE group in the Germany, Austria and Switzerland region (DACH).
- Christopher Dass was hired as a managing director covering pharma-tech and pharma-services companies by JPMorgan from Deutsche Bank. Dass will join the bank’s mid-cap investment banking group reporting to John Richert. He’ll also work closely with JPMorgan’s North American healthcare services investment banking team, headed by Nick Richitt. Dass joined Deutsche Bank in 2018 and was most recently a managing director.
- State Street Corp. is reportedly exploring a potential acquisition of Societe Generale SA’s custody business. Societe Generale has been seeking more than €1 billion (about $1.1 billion) for the business. Societe Generale CEO Slawomir Krupa has been working to divest the lender’s less profitable units to strengthen its capital buffers.
- Godspeed Capital Management LP, a lower middle-market defense and government services and technology-focused private equity firm, has bought Special Aerospace Services. Godspeed will form a space engineering, defense and commtech services platform to serve U.S. defense and intelligence agencies, as well as commercial space customers. The platform will operate under the SAS brand and be led by co-founder and CEO Heather Bulk.
- Bernhard Capital Partners, a services and infrastructure-focused private equity firm, through its DOE services platform, has acquired Strategic Management Solutions LLC, a provider of management and technical consulting services for federal and large industrial clients focused on nuclear programs and projects. SMSI provides program management and project services to the DOE, National Nuclear Security Administration, National Laboratories and industrial clients that operate within the Nuclear Security Enterprise.
- Nova Clean Energy, a portfolio company of Bluestar Energy Capital, has bought HyFuels, an over 1 GW portfolio of mid-to-late-stage wind and solar development projects as well as an earlier-stage green ammonia project. HyFuels, which has a current project footprint of about 25k acres, has a power supply that is split between wind and solar.
- Rubrik Inc., a cloud and data security startup backed by Microsoft Corp., is looking to raise as much as $713M in an initial public offering, Bloomberg News reported. Rubrik was founded in 2013 and released its first product in 2016. It said in filings with the U.S. SEC that it now has more than 6,100 customers, including Goldman Sachs, Barclays Plc and Citigroup.
- Maven Ventures, a San Francisco, CA-based seed stage venture capital firm, closed its Fund IV, at $60M. Founded in 2013 by Jim Scheinman, the firm invests in tech companies addressing emerging consumer behavior and trends, including consumer (AI), digital health and personalized healthcare, among others. The firm makes 6-8 investments each year in companies at seed with an average check size between $1M and $1.5M. The latest closing brings total assets to $200M. Maven’s portfolio includes Zoom, Cruise, Embark, and Epic! Books, among others.
- SOSV, a multi-stage deep tech venture investor, announced the close of SOSV V fund, at $306M. The fund will focus on deep tech startups in “human and planetary health”, with an emphasis on decarbonization and re-industrialization. The firm invests at pre-seed, when companies join its HAX and IndieBio development programs, and continues through series seed, A, and later stages, resulting in about 200 investments per year.
- Regeneron Ventures, a Greenwich, CT-based biotech focused venture capital firm, announced its launch with $500M to accelerate biotech innovation. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is the fund’s exclusive limited partner and has committed $100M annually for five years. The firm aims to focus on investing in promising biopharmaceutical, health care and health technology companies.
- Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund co-led a $150M Series D-2 funding round for Ramp, a NYC-based financial automation platform. With the funding, Ramp is now valued at $7.65B. Led by Eric Glyman, co-founder & CEO, Ramp provides a corporate card designed to help companies spend less and build profitable businesses.
- Found Energy, a Boston, MA-based cleantech startup building industrial decarbonization solutions, raised $12M in Seed funding. Backers included KOMPAS VC, Munich Re Ventures, Good Growth Capital, the Autodesk Foundation, J-Impact, GiTV, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), and Glenfield Partners LTD. Led by CEO Peter Godart, Found Energy has developed an aluminum-thermal power system that continuously generates carbon-free industrial heat, hydrogen, and alumina trihydrate (ATH) on-site from various aluminum feedstocks.