Lightrock announces promotions, board appointments

Vivian Riefberg, Ann Cairns and Peter Nussbaum have joined the GP’s board as non-executive members, while Lightrock team members Ashish Puri and Christopher Steinau have been promoted to partner.

New board member Riefberg has prior experience in the healthcare sector, including via roles with McKinsey, as well as several board positions and a role with the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

Cairns is executive vice chair at Mastercard and has held various executive positions in the financial services sector. She is global chair of the 30% Group, as well as lead non-executive board member of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Nussbaum co-founded the German office of US-headquartered law firm Millbank, leading the company’s corporate, M&A and private equity practices. He has prior experience advising several Lightrock portfolio companies, including Wefox and Lilium.

“We grew our team by more than 30% in 2021, and we are aiming for selected, targeted growth for this year,” Lightrock’s chief people officer Verena Margreiter told Unquote.

The board additions and promotions have paved the way for Lightrock’s geographic expansion, according to Pål Erik Sjåtil, CEO and global managing partner at Lightrock. “We are increasingly active in the US and we are also planning some more listings in the US, especially for our Latin American portfolio,” Sjåtil said. “We are also planning to establish a physical presence in the US very soon. It has been easy to cover different geographies remotely for now, but we will continue to expand into a few different areas.”

Asked about the GP’s investment strategy, Sjåtil said: “We have been investing in areas like energy transition and the enabling technologies of sustainability for several years, and we are continuing to do that.” The firm is also conscious of the current macroeconomic picture, he added. “There have been significant changes in the market recently, but it has not changed our strategy - in fact, it has cast the macro tailwinds of these areas into sharper focus. At portfolio level, we have seen a very significant increase in demand for the services of some of our portfolio companies, such as Sunfire – an important player in green hydrogen – and Antec Biogas, which is re-inventing green energy production from biogas; and Liqid – which is helping data centres reduce their energy consumption in a world where prices are at a record high.

“The macro changes and inflationary environment will not change our strategy and in many cases will provide further tailwinds,” Sjåtil added. “However, at a micro level, it is always important to adapt to the market that you are in. As such, the way we think about new investments and portfolio might change a little – for example, we are encouraging all of our portfolio companies to consider managing risk in a way that is appropriate for the new fundraising environment, and for new investments, we want to ensure that even the fastest growing companies have optionality in terms of how they spend their funding.”

Lightrock has assessed its priorities for 2022 versus 2021 in line with the current market environment. “A small shift between 2021 and 2022 has been that we were extra focused on follow-ons in 2021,” Sjåtil said. “We made 25 new investments and 34 follow-ons for the existing portfolio, deploying more than USD 800m in total, because we wanted to make sure they took advantage of good market conditions for fundraising.” The GP is likely to turn its focus to new deals in 2022, he added. “This year, we will probably deploy more in new investments, especially in the areas where we previously felt the risk/reward was mispriced. We want to be mindful of valuations and to ensure we stay disciplined on pricing – this was important in 2021 and will also be important in 2022.”

The GP is currently deploying from its balance sheet and its current fund, Lightrock Growth Fund I, which held a final close in July 2021 on USD 900m. “Our current fund is fully deployed in terms of new investments, although we will have some follow-ons.” Sjåtil said. “From our balance sheet, we are continuing to deploy steadily as we continue to see tremendous opportunity in our areas of focus.”

Lightrock is backed by the Princely House of Liechtenstein and LGT, the international private banking and asset management group. The firm registered its Climate Impact Fund in February 2022, as reported.

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