A pledge fund is a collective investment scheme that allows backers to make investment decisions on deal-to-deal basis. It emerged after the dotcom bubble when many investors abandoned the conventional private equity fund format in favour of angel investor clubs that allowed members to decide on whether to take part in a certain investment opportunity. The model itself is not limited to venture financing and can be applied across a multitude of business sectors wherein investments are made on per-deal basis. [1] [2]
Unlike the traditional private equity fund, the pledge fund allows investors to opt-in or opt-out of each investment opportunity the manager presents. The capital is contributed to a special purpose entity that purchases the shares. The fund may be organized within one SPV or establish separate SPVs for every portfolio investment. Execution of investors' right to opt-in and opt-out of deals makes pledge fund management, administration and documentation more complicated than of traditional private equity fund. Pledge fund model minimizes investing partners' capital risks but has certain drawbacks. For example, the extra time required to assess and screen investment opportunities and deal execution uncertainty may be disadvantageous in competitive acquisition process. [3]
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.
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm uses its internal reserves to satisfy its necessity for cash, while the term financing is used when the firm acquires capital from external sources.
A private investment in public equity, often called a PIPE deal, involves the selling of publicly traded common shares or some form of preferred stock or convertible security to private investors. It is an allocation of shares in a public company not through a public offering in a stock exchange. PIPE deals are part of the primary market. In the U.S., a PIPE offering may be registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a registration statement or may be completed as an unregistered private placement.
Bain Capital, LP is an American private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, public equity, impact investing, life sciences, crypto, tech opportunities, partnership opportunities, special situations, and real estate. Bain Capital invests across a range of industry sectors and geographic regions. The firm was founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. The company is headquartered at 200 Clarendon Street in Boston with 22 offices in North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
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.
A venture round is a type of funding round used for venture capital financing, by which startup companies obtain investment, generally from venture capitalists and other institutional investors. The availability of venture funding is among the primary stimuli for the development of new companies and technologies.
An angel investor is an individual who provides capital to a business or businesses, including startups, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Angel investors often provide support to startups at a very early stage, once or in a consecutive manner, and when most investors are not prepared to back them. In a survey of 150 founders conducted by Wilbur Labs, about 70% of entrepreneurs will face potential business failure, and nearly 66% will face this potential failure within 25 months of launching their company. A small but increasing number of angel investors invest online through equity crowdfunding or organize themselves into angel groups or angel networks to share investment capital and provide advice to their portfolio companies. The number of angel investors has greatly increased since the mid-20th century.
The early history of private equity relates to one of the major 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 experienced growth along parallel although interrelated tracks.
Publicly traded private equity refers to an investment firm or investment vehicle, which makes investments conforming to one of the various private equity strategies, and is listed on a public stock exchange.
Ares Management Corporation is a global alternative investment manager operating in the credit, private equity and real estate markets. The company was founded in 1997 with additional offices across North America, Europe, and Asia.
On March 23, 2009, the United States Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Federal Reserve, and the United States Treasury Department announced the Public–Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets. The program is designed to provide liquidity for so-called "toxic assets" on the balance sheets of financial institutions. This program is one of the initiatives coming out of the implementation of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) as implemented by the U.S. Treasury under Secretary Timothy Geithner. The major stock market indexes in the United States rallied on the day of the announcement rising by over six percent with the shares of bank stocks leading the way. As of early June 2009, the program had not been implemented yet and was considered delayed. Yet, the Legacy Securities Program implemented by the Federal Reserve has begun by fall 2009 and the Legacy Loans Program is being tested by the FDIC. The proposed size of the program has been drastically reduced relative to its proposed size when it was rolled out.
Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations and selling their related cash flows to third party investors as securities, which may be described as bonds, pass-through securities, or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Investors are repaid from the principal and interest cash flows collected from the underlying debt and redistributed through the capital structure of the new financing. Securities backed by mortgage receivables are called mortgage-backed securities (MBS), while those backed by other types of receivables are asset-backed securities (ABS).
OpCapita is a British private equity firm specialising in the retail, consumer and leisure industries. The firm invests in underperforming businesses that require operational support to improve profitability and create long-term, sustainable value. OpCapita was established in 2006, by American financier Henry Jackson.
Equity crowdfunding is the online offering of private company securities to a group of people for investment and therefore it is a part of the capital markets. Because equity crowdfunding involves investment into a commercial enterprise, it is often subject to securities and financial regulation. Equity crowdfunding is also referred to as crowdinvesting, investment crowdfunding, or crowd equity.
Fig was a crowdfunding platform for video games. It launched in August 2015. Unlike traditional crowdfunding approaches like Kickstarter, where individuals can back a project to receive rewards, Fig used a mixed model that includes individual backing and the opportunity for uncredited investors to invest as to obtain a share of future revenues for successful projects. At the end of 2017, four projects had begun generating returns, returning 245% to Fig investors.
Deal sourcing or deal origination is a term used by finance professionals such as private equity investors and investment bankers to describe the process by which firms identify investment opportunities. The term can apply to venture capital or private equity. Ensuring that a larger volume of deals are sourced is imperative to keeping up a viable deal flow.
Qualifying Investor Alternative Investment Fund or QIAIF is a Central Bank of Ireland regulatory classification established in 2013 for Ireland's five tax-free legal structures for holding assets. The Irish Collective Asset-management Vehicle or ICAV is the most popular of the five Irish QIAIF structures, it is the main tax-free structure for foreign investors holding Irish assets.