London-based Kennet raises $250M funding for its Fifth Fund to invest in ‘bootstrapped’ tech startup companies

Kennet Partners, a London-based European technology growth equity investor focused on bootstrapped and capital efficient technology startup companies, has raised $250 million (€223m) for its fifth fund, Kennet V* in partnership with Edmond de Rothschild. The Fund exceeded its target and secured new investors from across Europe and Asia.

Kennet V has already started to deploy the capital into new investments in Business to Business (B2B) Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies. The Fund has made investments in four companies in the UK, Europe and the US and has a strong pipeline for further investments.

Founded over 20 years ago, Kennet is a leading international growth equity firm that invests in high-growth companies in Europe and North America. Kennet specializes in investing in established, high growth technology companies which are founder-owned and ‘bootstrapped’ – built without significant external capital. Typically, the investment from Kennet is the first external funding that companies receive and is used to finance sales and marketing expansion, particularly internationally.

With offices in London and Silicon Valley, the firm supports entrepreneurial technology businesses with expansion capital to accelerate growth and build exceptional shareholder value. Kennet is one of the longest established technology growth investors in Europe with over 20 years of experience and a proven track record across multiple technology cycles. Kennet’s cumulative assets managed are approximately $1 billion.

Kennet V’s investments include companies such as Eloomi, a fast growth cloud-based Performance Management and Learning Management System and Codility, a remote-first platform for hiring software engineers. Investments from previous funds include Receipt Bank, the leading pre-accounting tool for accountants and bookkeepers, Nuxeo, a leading content services platform, Rimilia, a financial automation software platform as well as numerous exited companies.

Commenting on the funding, Michael Elias, Managing Director, Kennet Partners, said: “This fund raise is an important milestone for Kennet and demonstrates the success of our partnership with Edmond de Rothschild, which has provided us access to a range of new investors. Our experience investing in technology companies through multiple market cycles, has shown that it is a good time to invest during times of profound change. We therefore believe that the coming 2-3 years will be a very interesting time to deploy a fund.”

“The current pandemic has significantly accelerated the move to digitisation. COVID has required that people around the world change the way that they live and work. These changes are creating a structural shift that is forcing companies to turn to technological solutions. This has created strong longer-term opportunities for software businesses,” Hillel Zidel, Managing Director, Kennet Partners, said.

Johnny El-Hachem, CEO, Edmond de Rothschild Private Equity1, said: “Convinced that technology plays a critical role in the transformation of our economies and societies, our group has always been committed to promoting the emergence of innovative and value-creating companies. We partnered with Kennet, because we liked the dynamism of the team coupled with their strategy of financing businesses providing mission critical technology solutions. The COVID crisis has underscored the importance of many of these tools to business continuity.”