Ireland Strategic Investment Fund announces €50m investment in Reverence Capital Partners Opportunities Fund
21 March 2017
- Investment to support the creation of high-quality financial services jobs in Ireland.
- Kabbage Inc., a Reverence portfolio company, announces the establishment of its European headquarters in Ireland.
21 March 2017 - The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) today announces the completion of a €50 million investment in Reverence Capital Partners Opportunities Fund I L.P., a fund focused on investing in global, middle-market, financial services companies.
As part of ISIF's investment, Reverence will focus on job creation in Ireland and seek to create high quality financial services jobs in Ireland via its portfolio companies. As part of this undertaking, Kabbage Inc., a Reverence portfolio company headquartered in Atlanta that pioneered automated lending through its leading technology and data platform, announced today the establishment of its European headquarters in Ireland. Kabbage's Irish office will support the company's growing presence in Europe and will include partner management, engineering and product support functions. The Company expects fast growth across Europe over the coming years and sees significant opportunity in Ireland during that period.
Additionally Reverence, in conjunction with ISIF and the IDA, will seek to advance the development of the International Financial Services (IFS) sector in Ireland by encouraging other Reverence portfolio companies to consider establishing an Irish presence.
Reverence Capital Partners was founded in 2013 by Milton Berlinski, Peter Aberg and Alexander Chulack, a team with over 90 years' collective experience advising and investing across all segments of financial services. This is Reverence Capital Partners' first fund. Current investments include industry leaders such as Victory Capital Management, Kabbage, Russell Investments and Diamond Resorts International.
ISIF Director Eugene O'Callaghan said: "Our partnership with Reverence Capital Partners is strongly aligned with Government policy for the International Financial Services sector, as outlined in IFS 2020. We are delighted to have played a role in Kabbage's expansion to Europe. We expect our investment with Reverence to bring further high calibre expertise, investment capital and employment to this key sector of the Irish economy."
Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein said: "The Kabbage Platform is now powering automated lending across multiple countries for several of Europe's leading banks. We are excited to announce the establishment of our European office in Ireland to support these key partners and drive our European expansion to additional organizations and markets. As a high growth technology driven business, Kabbage was attracted to Ireland by the availability of a highly motivated, skilled, and talented workforce. We expect Ireland to be a very important part of our future business growth and to provide opportunities for a significant number of employees as we build out our Irish platform."
Reverence Capital Managing Partner Milton Berlinski said: "Reverence Capital is delighted to announce our partnership with the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund. Ireland has a vibrant financial services sector, and we expect significant opportunities for European growth for both existing and future Reverence portfolio companies."
Editors' notes
About the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund
The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (€8.1 billion at end December 2016) has a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis in a manner designed to support economic activity and employment in Ireland. The Fund has made investment commitments to date of €2.6 billion and plans to deploy the remainder of its resources over the coming years as suitable investment opportunities are identified.
About Kabbage
Kabbage Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, has pioneered a financial services data and technology platform to provide automated funding to small businesses in minutes. Kabbage leverages data generated through business activity such as accounting data, online sales, shipping and dozens of other sources to understand performance and deliver fast, flexible funding in real time. Kabbage is funded and backed by leading investors, including Reverence Capital Partners, SoftBank Capital, Thomvest Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund, ING, Santander InnoVentures, Scotiabank and TCW/Craton. All Kabbage U.S.-based loans are issued by Celtic Bank, a Utah-Chartered Industrial Bank, Member FDIC. For more information, please visit www.kabbage.com.
About Reverence Capital Partners
Founded in 2013 by Milton Berlinski, Peter Aberg, and Alexander Chulack, Reverence Capital Partners is a private investment firm focused on investing in leading financial services companies. The firm's partners bring over 90 years of experience across a wide range of financial services sectors, including asset management, banks and specialty finance, capital markets, financial technology, and insurance. For more information on Reverence Capital Partners, please see www.reverencecapital.com.