This Week’s Top Three – Family Capital’s top three investments this week

Given the extent of the deals in the family/principal investment office world, Family Capital has replaced our Deal of the Week, with This Week’s Top Three. The weekly feature will look at the three most compelling deals done by these group over the last week.

Big families and big institutional investors back sustainable lithium battery group

A group of prominent family investors have joined an equally well-known group of institutional investors to back a Swedish company developing sustainable lithium batteries. 

PCS Holding, the investment office of the Swiss billionaire Peter Spuhler, Swedish investor Cristina Stenbeck, a foundation owned by the Kamprad family, who own IKEA, Baron Capital, an investment fund owned by New York financier Ron Baron, and London-based investment office Bridford Investments, and the co-founder of Spotify, Daniel Ek,  have all backed Northvolt. 

These private investors join the likes of Goldman Sachs, Baillie Gifford, and the Volkswagen group in a private equity deal worth $600 million. 

Northvolt, which has only been around for five years, has already attracted $3.3 billion in backing, with more than $1.5 billion of the total bank loans. 

Northvolt was started by Peter Carlsson, a former senior manager at Tesla. The Stockholm-based business plans to develop and manufacture specialized lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. Northvolt says its batteries will be: “the world’s greenest battery to enable the European transition to renewable energy”. 

No wonder investors are piling in. 

Maryland family office buys call dealerships in Florida

Redwood Capital Investments – the family office of Jim Davis who co-founded Allegis Group, a big staffing and recruitment group based in Maryland – has in the last week been busy buying up car dealerships across Florida. The Hanover, Maryland-based investment group bought dealerships in Margate, Tamarac, and West Palm Beach, all towns in the urban sprawl north of Miami. 

Redwood, which was founded more than ten years ago, has been an active investor. A few years ago it co-invested with The Pritzker Organization, the family investment group of Thomas Pritzker, and private equity house Stephens Capital Partners, to buy broadband communications and entertainment business, Hargray Communications Group. 

Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries teams up with private impact investment groups to back human resource group

Holding group Access Industries, together with New Era Ventures, a Washington D.C.-based investment group set up by Andre Byers, an academic and investor, and Dynamic Loop Capital, an impact investment group set up by Ronald Cohen, a UK-based venture and social capital investor, have backed Papaya Global.

The three investors have come together with five other investors in a Series B deal worth $40 million. New York City-based Papaya is a human resource platform designed for payroll, payments, and workforce management. It’s received nearly $100 million in capital since setting up in 2016. Dynamic Loop and New Era Ventures backed Papaya in earlier rounds.