British Patient Capital, a subsidiary of the British Business Bank, has made a €57 million cornerstone commitment to Kennet Partners' fifth fund as it announces its €223 million close today.

Kennet specialises in investing in established, high-growth technology companies which are founder-owned and ‘bootstrapped’ – built without significant external capital.

Typically, investment from Kennet is the first external funding that companies receive and is primarily used to support international expansion, enabling companies to meet the global market opportunities often associated with software-as-a-service (SaaS) business models.

Michael Elias, managing director at Kennet Partners, said: “Our experience investing in technology companies through multiple market cycles, has shown that it is a good time to invest during times of profound change - we therefore believe that the coming two to three years will be a very interesting time to deploy a fund.”

Catherine Lewis La Torre, chief executive at British Patient Capital, said: “Kennet has an outstanding track record when it comes to identifying and backing growth stage software businesses, and as a specialist in bootstrapped companies it can tap a rich seam of opportunities.

"Providing growth stage, proven businesses with the capital to expand and meet international opportunities sits right at the heart of our investment strategy, and is well aligned with our long-term vision for more home-grown companies to become players on the global stage”.

The fund has already started to deploy capital into new investments in business to business and SaaS companies, with investments in four companies in the UK, Europe and the US - and a "strong pipeline" for further investments.

Investments include companies such as Eloomi, a cloud-based performance management system, and Codility, a remote-first platform for hiring software engineers. Investments from previous funds include Receipt Bank, a pre-accounting tool for accountants and bookkeepers, Nuxeo, a content services platform, Rimilia, a financial automation software platform.

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