Latest news with #growthfinance
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Nighthawk and Arena Investors, LP Launch Venture Lending Platform to Support UK Innovation Economy
LONDON, July 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Nighthawk Advisors LLP ("Nighthawk"), a specialist growth lender to early and mid-stage UK small and medium enterprises ("SMEs"), has announced the formation of a new secured lending platform in partnership with Arena Investors, LP ("Arena"). The programme will provide up to £30 million of flexible capital to UK SMEs, with capacity to scale to £60 million as demand grows. The platform has already completed its first two transactions, deploying £5 million in funding to two highly innovative UK-based technology companies. The companies financed are in UK-based fast growing technology sectors of ad-tech and personalised nourishment, demonstrating the wide range of businesses the venture is prepared to support. This partnership combines Nighthawk's specialist structuring expertise and access to emerging growth businesses with Arena's global institutional platform and experience navigating complex private credit markets. The joint venture aims to address the growing demand for alternative non-dilutive growth finance solutions from UK SMEs that are scaling rapidly but underserved by traditional bank lending or venture equity. "Across the UK, there are outstanding innovation-led businesses seeking the right kind of growth capital to scale responsibly and sustainably," said Xavier Van Hove and James Davis, Managing Partners at Nighthawk. "This partnership allows us to offer highly tailored financing to help these businesses create skilled jobs, retain intellectual property onshore, and drive long-term economic value for the UK." Pablo Fraga, European Private Investments, Managing Director at Arena, commented: "We are delighted to partner with Nighthawk in supporting the next generation of UK growth companies. The UK innovation economy presents exciting opportunities, and this platform allows us to deploy flexible capital where it can have real impact." With its focus on supporting ambitious UK businesses at critical stages of growth, the venture contributes to the broader objective of strengthening the UK's innovation ecosystem and supporting domestic scale-up activity. About Arena Investors, LP: Arena is a global multi-strategy investment firm with approximately $4.1 billion of assets under management and programmatic capital1 as of April 1, 2025, with a team of over 180 employees in offices globally. The firm is a subsidiary of Arena Investors Group Holdings ("AIGH"). AIGH, along with its affiliate, Ceres Life Insurance, comprises the Westaim Corporation (TSXV: "WED"), an integrated asset management and life insurance and annuity provider. In its alternatives business, Arena provides creative solutions for those seeking capital across all corporate, real estate, and structured finance investment areas, at all levels of the capital structure, and in all developed markets, alongside operational capabilities to manage and improve the businesses and assets in which it invests. The Firm brings together individuals with decades of experience, a track record of comfort with complexity, the ability to deliver within time constraints, and the flexibility to engage in transactions and business operations that cannot be addressed by banks and other conventional financial institutions. Please see for more information. About Nighthawk Advisors LLP: Nighthawk is a London-based growth lender focused on financing early and mid-stage technology SMEs based in the UK and Europe. The team has significant experience lending to and investing in technology companies, helping them accelerate their growth with innovative and non-dilutive funding solutions. Media Contact Prosek Partners Pro-arena@ 1Programmatic capital includes callable capital to discretionary and non-discretionary separately managed accounts and certain commingled vehicles. View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Arena Investors Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
30-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
As VC Investment Rises Is The U.K. A Good Place To Scale?
Quantexa founder Vishal Marria says British money is hard to raise beyond B and C rounds As far as raising VC capital is concerned, the U.K. prides itself on being a good place to start a business. However, questions remain over the ecosystem's ability to support companies as they scale. According to figures published this month by the British Venture Capital Association, investment across 2024 totalled £9 billion, representing a rise of 12.5% from the previous year. And with the same report noting an increase in the number of venture funds raising capital to support their investment strategies, it seems likely the upward trend in investment will continue. That's fine as far as it goes, but successive surveys have pointed to a shortage of capital from local funds once larger sums of money are required - usually beyond the B and C stages. This is the point when international investors with deep pockets tend to step in. As the BVCA pointed out in a separate report, increasing investment by overseas funds has been a factor in British startups moving their headquarters to other jurisdictions - notably the U.S. - as they begin to scale. This is a matter of some concern to policymakers who want to keep cutting-edge technology firms headquartered in the U.K.. More fundamentally, while there is plenty of capital available to support megarounds and unicorns, many scaling businesses struggle to find the necessary capital. So, what are the realities of raising growth finance in the U.K.? Earlier this week, I spoke to Vishal Marria, founder and CEO of Quantexa, a company that provides AI-driven decision-making technology to a range of public and private sector clients. In March, Quantexa completed a Series F round, securing $175 million in a deal led by Teachers' Venture Growth, a division of the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTTP) investment fund. The investment values the company at $2.6 billion. First the good news. As Quantexa has demonstrated, there is money available. 'If you are a great company you can attract capital and investment,' says Marria. However, as he acknowledges, scaling a U.K. technology company will almost certainly require overseas finance. 'Getting British money is very difficult after stages B and C,' he says. 'If you look at my cap table, Series D was led by Warburg Pincus, a US private equity company, Series E was led by GIC of Singapore and Series F was led by OTTP.' Quantexa's SaaS platform uses a combination of big data, analytics and AI to enable customers to make better decisions. That could mean helping a bank to detect money laundering or working with government departments to uncover fraud using a mixture of internal and external contextual data. For instance, the company has worked with the U.K. government's Cabinet Office to pursue criminals who took advantage of a 'bounceback' loan scheme introduced to support businesses during the COVID pandemic. With revenues of $100 billion, Quantexa has established itself as a global player in this field, with customers in Europe, the APAC region and North America. This, combined with rapid growth, has enabled Quantexa to attract investors, but Marria acknowledges, a relative shortfall in domestically originated funding does have potential consequences. 'There is a playbook that says, Dear Founder, you have to move to the US to complete your journey and IPO,' he says. So there is, he says, work to be done to improve the flow of domestic funding. The great hope in this regard is that planned reforms that will allow pension funds to invest in startups and scaleups. 'It is really important to unlock pension fund money and we need to do more of that,' says Marria. And there has been some progress on that front. This week, the government published plans to create £25bn pension scheme megafunds, which will be required to invest more in the domestic economy, with scaleups and infrastructure projects among the beneficiaries. Announcing the reforms Finance Minister Rachel reeves promised 'Billions more invested in clean energy and high-growth businesses.' Beyond questions of finance, Marria stresses that being headquartered in the U.K. has a number of benefits, not least in terms of geography and time zones. 'We are in the centre of Asia and the US. I can start my day with a 6.30 call in Asia, followed by UK client calls and finish the day with calls to the U.S.," he says. For companies working in the AI and data space, the U.K. potentially has some other important advantages. Later this year, the UK government will be publishing its industrial strategy, which is expected to focus on key technology sectors, such as AI, quantum and bioscience. With a huge amount of data at its disposal and a clear requirement to deliver better services without necessarily raising overall spending and taxation levels, the government itself is likely to be an important customer for AI and advanced data services. Clearly, there will be opportunities for startups. However, Marria stresses that not everyone will benefit. 'The government has a substantial view of data, and has a number of use cases for putting that data to work. You have innovative companies who can help solve the problems,' he says. 'However, because of the sensitivities of the data, the public sector has onboarding and security controls and it cannot work with all of the companies.' In Marria's view, the U.K. is a good place to scale a business, with funding available for companies that can demonstrate growth and revenue potential. Nevertheless, more domestic funding is required. I
