Farview Equity launches, inks first deal

Farview is London-based and will invest in lower-mid-market enterprises and financial technology businesses across Europe. The firm declined to comment on its current funding model and fundraising plans. However, Unquote understands that Farview intends to raise a fund with a target of at least €300m, and has started to approach potential investors.

The firm was founded by a five-strong team with a mix of PE, advisory and executive experience. Partner John Rosenberg spent 18 years at TCV, most recently as partner and head of Europe. Guy Sochovsky is also a partner and previously spent 10 years at Warburg Pincus, following which he held various executive roles, including CFO at Mach and CFO at New Voice Media. Partner and COO Samantha McGonigle worked for 13 years at Weil Gotshal & Manges, most recently as partner, and also spent five years at Lovells. Dipish Rai is a principal at Farview and worked for six years at Providence Equity. The firm has a fourth founding partner, whose name will be disclosed in the coming weeks.

Farview targets businesses with enterprise values of less than €250m, investing in significant minority or majority transactions.  Leverage is expected to be "zero to moderate" across the portfolio, according to a source familiar with the situation. Farview looks for profitable companies with minimum annual revenues of €8-10m and average growth rates of between 20-60%. It will look to make 10-12 investments over the next five years.

In parallel with its launch, Farview has announced its maiden investment: the firm secured a minority stake in Unily, a provider of digital experience cloud software. Farview is investing alongside Silversmith Capital Partners, a US growth equity firm, which also acquired a minority stake. The majority of the share capital will be held by the founders and current management team. Based in Godalming and with offices in North America, Asia and Australia, Unily's clients include McDonald's, British Airways, Mars, Shell, Cathay Pacific, Microsoft and L'Oréal.

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• Topics
• GPs
• Buyouts
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• UK / Ireland
• United Kingdom