Private equity (PE) is stock in a private company that does not offer stock to the general public. In the field of finance, private equity is offered instead to specialized investment funds and limited partnerships that take an active role in the management and structuring of the companies. In casual usage, "private equity" can refer to these investment firms, rather than the companies in which they invest.
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number of employees, annual revenue, scale of operations, etc. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. Start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and often come from high technology industries such as information technology (IT) or biotechnology.
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in the primary and secondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns stock is a shareholder.
A private equity fund is a collective investment scheme used for making investments in various equity securities according to one of the investment strategies associated with private equity. Private equity funds are typically limited partnerships with a fixed term of 10 years. At inception, institutional investors make an unfunded commitment to the limited partnership, which is then drawn over the term of the fund. From the investors' point of view, funds can be traditional or asymmetric.
An equity co-investment is a minority investment, made directly into an operating company, alongside a financial sponsor or other private equity investor, in a leveraged buyout, recapitalization or growth capital transaction. In certain circumstances, venture capital firms may also seek co-investors.
In finance, the private-equity secondary market refers to the buying and selling of pre-existing investor commitments to private-equity and other alternative investment funds. Given the absence of established trading markets for these interests, the transfer of interests in private-equity funds as well as hedge funds can be more complex and labor-intensive.
Silicon Wadi is a region in Israel that serves as one of the global centres for advanced technology. It spans the Israeli coastal plain, and is cited as among the reasons why the country has become known as the world's "start-up nation". The highest concentrations of high-tech industry in the region can be found around Tel Aviv, including small clusters around the cities of Raʽanana, Petah Tikva, Herzliya, Netanya, Rehovot, and Ness Ziona. Additional clusters of high-tech industry can be found in Haifa and Caesarea. More recent high-tech establishments have been raised in cities such as Jerusalem and Beersheba, in towns such as Yokneam Illit, and in Airport City. Israel has the third highest number of startups by region and the highest rate of startups per capita in the world.
Coller Capital is one of the largest global investors in the private equity secondary market ("secondaries"). It was founded in 1990 by the UK-based investor and philanthropist Jeremy Coller.
Lexington Partners is one of the largest manager of secondary acquisition and co-Investment funds in the world, founded in 1994. Lexington manages approximately $55 billion of which an unprecedented $14 billion was committed to the firm's ninth fund, the largest dedicated secondaries pool of capital ever raised at the time.
The history of private equity, venture capital, and the development of these asset classes has occurred through a series of boom-and-bust cycles since the middle of the 20th century. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital experienced growth along parallel, although interrelated tracks.
Norwest Venture Partners (Norwest) is an American venture and growth equity investment firm. The firm targets early to late-stage venture and growth equity investments across several sectors, including cloud computing and information technology, Internet, SaaS, business and financial services, and healthcare. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Norwest has offices in San Francisco and subsidiaries in Mumbai, India and Tel Aviv, Israel. The firm has funded more than 700 companies since inception.
Insight Venture Management, LLC is a global venture capital and private equity firm that invests in high-growth technology, software, and Internet businesses. The company is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London, Tel Aviv, and Palo Alto.
Private equity in the 2000s represents one of the major growth periods in the history of private equity and venture capital. Within the broader private equity industry, two distinct sub-industries, leveraged buyouts and venture capital expanded along parallel and interrelated tracks.
Jonathan Paul Moulton is a British venture capitalist. He is the founder and managing partner of private equity firm Better Capital, and the former managing partner of private equity firm Alchemy Partners. He has been working in private equity since 1980. Moulton writes, broadcasts and speaks on corporate finance and financial matters. His career has also included spells running Citicorp Venture Capital, Schroder Ventures (Permira) and the buy-out group of Apax, as well as being a director of numerous public and private companies.
HarbourVest Partners is a private equity fund of funds and one of the largest private equity investment managers globally. The firm invests in all types of private equity funds, including venture capital and leveraged buyout funds, and also directly in operating companies.
Impact investing refers to investments "made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return". At its core, impact investing is about an alignment of an investor's beliefs and values with the allocation of capital to address social and/or environmental issues.
Izak Parviz Nazarian was an Iranian-born American billionaire, businessman, investor, real-estate developer, and philanthropist. He was the managing partner of Omninet Capital, an investment vehicle and the first major investor in Qualcomm.
Dan Amiram is the Dean and the Joseph Safra Capital markets and Financial Institutions Chaired professor of Business at the Coller School of Management at Tel Aviv University. He also serves as the head of the Fintech concentration in the MBA program. He served and currently serves on public companies' board of directors in the United States and Israel.
In the 2010s Private equity massively grew. As of 2019, there were nearly 7,000 private equity firms within the United States, nearly $2.5T globally in unspent cash, and dealmaking in private equity accounted for 13% of global acquisitions.
The Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return Initiative commonly called FAIRR Initiative, is an investor network.
