Switzerland-based growth equity firm Evolution Equity Partners closed its latest fund at $125m yesterday, with contributions from Cisco Investments and Witelo Fund, representatives of networking technology provider Cisco and PZU Insurance Group.
Other limited partners for Evolution Technology Fund include the multilateral European Investment Fund, investment management firm Alpha Associates and unnamed family offices and entrepreneurs in the technology space.
Evolution has offices in Zurich and New York City, USA, and invests in technology developers, with a particular focus on cybersecurity and enterprise software.
The fund is targeting companies building software platforms, and in particular technologies such as machine learning, big data, software-as-a-service, mobile and the point where consumer and enterprise software meet. It will provide between $5m and $25m for each investment.
Richard Seewald, managing partner of Evolution, said: “Evolution’s sector focus, along with the partners’ deep operating, technical and product development expertise allows us to take a concentrated approach in identifying leading entrepreneurial companies poised for growth.
“We see tremendous opportunity in Europe, North America and Israel alike where management teams of rapidly growing software companies seek investors that can help with international expansion.”
Evolution’s past investments include cybersecurity software providers AVG Technologies, which went public in 2012, and OpenDNS, which was acquired by Cisco for $635m in 2015.