Edinburgh investment firm Par Equity hails £100 million tech growth milestone

Par Equity, the Edinburgh-based investment firm that backs early-stage tech businesses, has hailed a £100 million milestone.

The to-date figure was achieved when the venture capital company completed five investments in a week last month.

One of the highlights of Par’s recent activity was a multi-million-pound investment in Artus, a company looking to revolutionise the heating and air conditioning industry.

A spin-out from engineering giant Arup, with offices in Edinburgh and London, the firm has developed technology that makes the heating and cooling of buildings much more efficient.

Paul Munn and Andrew Noble of Edinburgh's Par Equity.

Following the string of recent investments, Par Equity now holds 43 companies in its portfolio, including Cumulus (Belfast), Nova Pangea Technologies (Middlesbrough), Integrated Graphene (Stirling) and Novosound (Glasgow).

Andrew Noble, partner at Par Equity, said: “Over the past few years we’ve seen the confluence of a maturing, successful portfolio and an accelerating technology M&A [merger and acquisition] market.

“As investors in the next generation of tech talent, we seek to evolve our investment criteria and ways of working to find and build exciting companies.”

Over the last nine years, the firm has launched and managed two commercial forestry investment vehicles, building a strong profile in this asset class.

Managing director Paul Munn said: “Commercial forestry as an alternative asset class has an exciting future, with accelerating interest due to the carbon sequestration potential and the launch of tradable carbon credits. As governments, businesses and consumers adopt a net zero mindset, commercial forestry is likely to play a critical role in achieving the targets they set.”

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