Two investments in ninth fund have reached valuations in excess of £1bn
Following the realisation of Avantia in September, we are delighted to announce the close of ECI’s ninth fund, generating a 3x return and 36% IRR.
The fund comprised of 15 investments, including two tech unicorns now valued at over £1bn – Auction Technology Group (ATG) and Wireless Logic.¹
ECI 9 was a 2010 vintage fund which was invested between September 2010 and September 2014. It attracted strong interest from investors across a wide range of geographies, consisting of 28 leading institutional private equity investors split between the UK, US, continental Europe, and Asia. These investors included pension funds, insurance companies, fund of funds, private banks, endowments, and family offices, many of whom have invested across multiple ECI funds spanning the past 20+ years.
ECI’s fund strategy is to look for growth and resilience, found in specific subsectors which it focuses in on to build strength in depth, to deliver repeatable success. This ninth fund covered a range of these subsectors such as IoT, online marketplaces, SME services, SaaS and travel. The biggest returns in the fund came from leading IoT provider Wireless Logic (6x), online car rental aggregator CarTrawler (6x) and Citation (5x), which provides HR and Employment Law, Health & Safety and ISO Certification solutions to SMEs.
We have a strong track-record of working with our portfolio companies to help them expand internationally and half of the 20 bolt-on investments made across the fund were international, with a strong bias towards North America.
