bunq growth equity financing and acquisition of Capitalflow

Bigblu Broadband plc on the proposed disposal of Quickline to Northleaf Capital

Bigblu Broadband plc on the proposed sale of its EU and UK satellite broadband operations to Eutelsat S.A.

TransIP Group on its merger with Combell Group

Teraco majority sale to Berkshire Partners

Orange acquisition of Basefarm

Trax Technologies merger with Veraction

ZPG plc acquisition of uSwitch

ZPG plc acquisition of Property Software Group

ZPG plc acquisition of money.co.uk

Just Eat transactions

Telecity Group transactions

Select transactions include:

Rupert has led or been involved in many of the transactions on which Torch has advised, including some landmark deals in the European digital and technology sector over the last 20 years.

Rupert Robson

Bain Capital on its acquisition of Inetum S.A.

Iris Capital – venture capital fund raising

Orange – Amena, Dailymotion and Pages Jaunes transactions

Ingenico – Sagem transactions

TDF – Texas Pacific Group transactions

LP Technologies transactions

After a scientific academic curriculum at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, Jean-Baptiste trained as a civil servant at the Ecole Nationale d’Administration and served for four years  in the French Treasury Department.

In 1988, he joined Lehman Brothers in New York, before returning to Paris in 1991 where he joined Rothschild & Cie followed by SG Warburg in 1994.

Following the acquisition of SG Warburg by UBS, he founded the eponymous advisory boutique Toulouse & Associés in 2000, which later merged with Banca Leonardo to become a pan-European franchise. Jean-Baptiste joined Torch in 2018.

Jean-Baptiste Toulouse

Datasite acquisition of Sherpany

Nexthink’s acquisition of AppLearn

Mayfair Equity Partners’ acquisition of TrustedHousesitters

Sale of Greenstone+ to Cority

Sale of GleSYS to Cube Infrastructure Managers

Sale of Cushon to NatWest Group

Netrics sale of its datacentres and connectivity services to NorthC

Ficolo sale to Digital 9 Infrastructure plc

Curriculum Associates on the minority investment by Hellman & Friedman

M247’s disposal of its Manchester data centre to Pulsant

Green Mountain sale to Azrieli Group

KKR acquisition of ERM

Astorg and Bridgepoint acquisition of Fenergo

Permira's Growth Opportunities Fund $180m investment into Nexthink

Global Compute Infrastructure, backed by Goldman Sachs, acquisition of ATM S.A.

Bigblu Broadband plc on the sale of its EU and UK satellite broadband operations to Eutelsat S.A.

Purplebricks Group plc disposal of its Canadian business to Desjardins Group

Parcel2Go sale to Mayfair Equity Partners

Wax Digital sale to Medius

The Datacenter Group sale to DWS

Crypto Facilities sale to Kraken

Majority sale of Teraco to Berkshire Partners

The Permira Funds acquisition of Teraco

Oak Hill Capital Partners acquisition of Pulsant

MCB Finance plc sale to IPF plc

Summit Partners' acquisition of 360T

Just Eat IPO on the London Stock Exchange

CarTrawler majority sale to ECI Partners

Calastone Series B Financing

In addition to leading the firm, Tom is Head of both the M&A and Software team and is active running transactions across the Digital Infrastructure, Software and FinTech verticals.

Tom Roberts

Interogo on its equity investment into CityFibre

Sunrise on the disposal of its tower portfolio to Cellnex

IHS on acquisition of Helios Towers and Estisalat tower portfolio in Nigeria, as well as Bharti Airtel tower portfolios in Zambia and Rwanda

TeliaSonera on the disposal of Ncell

KPN on the sale of its tower portfolio in Germany to American Tower

Over 10 M&A transactions for Vodafone globally

Victor joined Torch in 2021 and brings with him more than 17 years investment banking experience.

Prior to joining Torch, Victor started his career with UBS Investment Bank in the M&A team, executing transactions across multiple sectors before joining the TMT Investment Banking team in London.

Victor Dobre

Public offer launched by Capgemini on Altran Technologies

Creation of a JV between Orange and Groupama in Home Security in France

SFR public buyout offer followed by a squeeze-out launched by Altice

Numéro 23 acquisition by NextRadio TV

Apax Partners disposal of Infopro Digital

Alain Weill / Altice partnership public offer for NextRadio TV

TF1 acquisition of Newen

Orange disposal of Orange Armenia to UCom

Atos acquisition of Xerox’s ITO business

Atos public offer for Bull

Alexandre is a senior investment banker based in Paris with extensive experience advising corporations, entrepreneurs and investors on M&A and private capital transactions. An authentic Technology enthusiast, Alexandre focuses on the software & services sectors and has a genuine interest in digital health.  He contributes to the firm's capabilities as a domain-focused financial adviser to clients in both the French market and internationally.

Prior to joining Torch in 2022, Alexandre was with Perella Weinberg Partners, Rothschild & Co and Lazard.

Alexandre Landuren

TrusTrace’s $24m Series B led by Circularity Capital

N+ONE DATACENTERS’ $90m growth equity funding led by AIIM

Lodgify €30m Series B growth equity financing

IXAfrica $50m growth equity funding

Token $40m Series C financing led by Cota Capital and TempoCap

IXcellerate $190m growth financing

Morrison & Co (representing Infratil) on its investment in Kao Data

Teamwork $70m growth equity financing

Bizay €32m Series C financing

Beekeeper $50m Series B financing

Itconic sale to Equinix for €215m

Just Eat Series A financing

Telecity Group financings and acquisitions

Since 2021, Andrew has raised capital of over $500m for high growth companies across the enterprise software, digital consumer, fintech and digital infrastructure sectors. In his career at Torch, he has completed more than thirty M&A and financing transactions in digital infrastructure, alongside his experience in other tech verticals.

Prior to joining Torch, Andrew was an early stage tech investor at Atlas Venture in San Francisco and London. He began his career in the healthcare investment banking team at Morgan Stanley.

Andrew Leathers

€100m fundraising round of Devialet

LBO of SequoiaSoft

Growth equity fundraising round for Third Bridge

Growth equity fundraising round for Ornikar

LBO of Silicom

€30m fundraising and sale of Mirane to Madic

Buy-out of Scentys

Octavius focuses on delivering to clients a differentiated network of investors and acquirers, leveraging his deep and global relationships with family offices and institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds.

He was most recently Technology Partner at Access Capital Partners (>€13bn under management) where he invested across Europe. Prior to that, he held Managing Director positions at Clearwater International Corporate Finance and Paris-based corporate finance advisory Financière de Courcelles.

Octavius Mihaies

Jens is based in Frankfurt, focusing on providing differentiated financial and strategic advice to clients in the DACH region as well as more broadly across Europe.

Jens has a wealth of experience in the enterprise software market and was most recently Managing Director, TMT at Macquarie Capital, the principal investing arm of Macquarie Group, where he invested in technology companies across Europe. Prior to that, Jens was Co-Chief Executive Officer at Deutsche Handelsbank AG and Head of Technology Investment Banking at Oppenheimer, covering various transactions and fundraising mandates across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Jens Munk

SustainCERT completed $37m Series B capital raise to scale the world’s first climate impact verification platform

Long-term strategic partnership between Concirrus and Applied Underwriters

Envizi sale to IBM Corp.

Five Arrows £120m growth investment into Causeway Technologies

BIMM sale to ICG

SEP and Elliot Advisors growth investment in TotallyMoney

Equistone investment in Small World

Rule 3 advisor to Lombard Risk on the VERMEG takeover

PowerAdvocate sale to Verisk Analytics

Dynamo Software sale to Francisco Partners

Karnov sale to Five Arrows (FAPI)

RISQ sale to Sterling Infosystems

4Sight Financial Software sale to Broadridge

Brenton has an interest and passion for working with entrepreneurial tech and tech-enabled businesses and has been involved in several marquee growth and M&A transactions in Europe and the US. While his remit and experience extends across multiple verticals / horizontals, he more recently has spent a considerable amount of time within Impact and ESG software and their adjacencies. 

Brenton joined Torch in 2020, having worked within the Software, Data and Analytics and Fintech teams at Houlihan Lokey and Quayle Munro.

Brenton Purslowe

GPS' $300m growth equity financing

$250m minority investment in OakNorth

Cloudwalk's $200m growth equity financing

Tide's $100m growth equity financing

BigPay's $100m growth equity financing

$65m Series B raise for Friss

£36m Series C raise for Moneyfarm

Fawry's $100m IPO and $58m private placement

$29bn merger of equals between National Bank of Abu Dhabi and First Gulf Bank to create the largest bank in MENA

Sale of ING's pan-Asian investment management business

Sale of AXA Private Equity to a consortium of investors

Acquisition of Colonial Bank by BB&T

Sale of Pantheon Ventures to AMG

IPOs of Cembra Money Bank, BAWAG Bank, Moscow Stock Exchange

Rishi joined Torch in 2022 and brings with him over 20 years of financial services experience. 

Rishi has strong relationships in the venture and growth capital ecosystem and a track record of raising private capital for and selling growth companies.

Rishi joined Torch Partners from FT Partners in London, where he spent over 3 years scaling their EMEA franchise. Prior to FT Partners, Rishi spent over a decade at Credit Suisse, both in New York and in London, advising FIG and FinTech clients as the Head of EMEA FIG M&A and Head of EMEA FIG Emerging Markets.

Rishi Sethi

BigPay’s up to $100m Series A

Nium's $200m+ Series D capital raise from Riverwood and Temasek

Currencycloud's ~$1bn sale to Visa

Nium's acquisition of Ixaris

iBanFirst's growth equity financing from Marlin Equity

OakNorth's $250m+ minority investment by select investors

Currencycloud's $80m Series E led by Visa

Kantox's series C

Ebury's £350m investment by Santander for 50.1% stake

ID Now's $40m growth financing from Corsair Capital

Sale of Signicat to Nordic Capital

Vitruvian's minority Investment in Deposit Solutions for a total consideration of $100m

MarketInvoice's (now MarketFinance) series B

Deutsche Bank on the IPO of its asset management arm DWS

National Bank of Greece on its disposal of Banca Romaneasca

Board of Directors of Credit Agricole SA on its €18 billion restructuring

Pollen Street Capital on its disposal of Moneycorp to Bridgepoint

Rathbone Brothers on its acquisition of Jupiter's Private Client's business

Strong of his 10+ years of experience in the FinTech and Financial Services sectors, Jeremy has always been passionate about the FinTech world. After spending 3+ years at Credit Suisse in London as part of their FIG EMEA coverage team, Jeremy naturally joined FT Partners in 2018 to launch and scale their London-based operations. He supported European and Asian founders and entrepreneurs across a wide range of FinTech verticals and developed a set of robust skills to help founders analyse their business and prepare for investors’ due diligence and scrutiny during a fundraising or a sale. Jeremy joined Torch in 2022.

Jeremy is absolutely amazed by the energy that founders invest into setting up, growing, scaling and accelerating businesses and find that helping them raising funds, achieving life goals and creating new jobs is a very rewarding feeling.

Jeremy Benamosi

Netrics sale of its data centres and connectivity services to NorthC

Africa Oil’s $520m investment for a 50% stake in Nigerian Deepwater oil assets

Advent International acquisition of Færch Plast

CVC acquisition of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd’s International Women’s Health assets for $703m

Bolt-on acquisition for a Warburg Pincus portfolio company

Harry has comprehensive sellside and buyside M&A and private capital fundraising experience, predominantly focussing on software, digital infrastructure and fintech. He particularly enjoys working closely with founders of high-growth businesses, both on growth rounds and exits. Recently, he worked with the founder of bunq to raise capital at a unicorn valuation and the largest European Series A round for a fintech company, as well as multiple founder led businesses in the Data Centre space.

Harry also has significant experience working with financial sponsors, utilising his comprehensive technical valuation and accounting experience. Harry worked with Permira’s Growth Opportunities fund on a Series D investment into Nexthink at a unicorn valuation.

The majority of transactions that Harry has worked on at Torch Partners have been with repeat clients or has come from referrals of previous clients.

Harry joined Torch in 2019, having previously worked in the M&A team at Standard Bank, covering Sub-Saharan Africa across all sectors. Prior to that, he worked at EY in both Audit and Financial Due Diligence.

Harry Jones

Zoovu $169m Series C funding

Everli $100m growth equity financing

Sale of Adra Software to Vista Equity Partners

Sale of Piriform to Avast

With a strong background in fundraising, particularly in the software and consumer internet sectors, Stefan is passionate about helping founders of high-growth businesses raise capital for the next phase of their growth. He has also gained extensive experience working with growth equity investors in the tech sector from around the world.

Stefan joined Torch in 2018, after working at EY in both Audit and Transaction Services / M&A in both offices Munich and London. Stefan is a German native speaker.

Stefan Koeck

Sale of Ullink to Ititivi / Nordic Capital 

Acquisition of Calypso Technologies by Bridgepoint and Summit Partners

Sale of EIT’s minority stake in Tunisie Telecom

Acquisition financing of Teamviewer for Permira 

Acquisition of Advanstar Communications by United Business Media

Capital raise for Irish Residential Properties REIT

Debt refinancings for SES S.A. (€1.2bn, Telecom/Satellite)

Acquisition of Carrefour Thailand by BigC/Casino

Takeover of Ginger by Grontmij

Mathieu has advised on numerous M&A and private capital transactions across the Technology and Software space.

Prior to joining Torch in 2021, he worked at Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland, advising public and private clients across the Technology, Media and Telecoms sectors in EMEA.

Mathieu Turcas

Advisory to DiaSorin on the acquisition of Luminex

Sale of Igenomix (EQT portfolio company) to Vitrolife

Sale of Przelewy 24 (Payments24) to Nets Group

SELECT TRANSACTIONS INCLUDE:

Konrad has a comprehensive view of the transaction process having worked in M&A, financial modelling and financial due diligence departments as well as a private equity fund.

Having worked on transactions across Europe, Konrad gained experience advising founders (e.g. Cushon, Przelewy24) as well as financial sponsors (e.g. Montagu, Permira, Cinven, Astorg, EQT).

Prior to joining Torch in 2022, Konrad worked in different companies incl. Morgan Stanley in London, PwC in Warsaw and setting up a private equity fund in Poland. He utilised his broad technical experience and industry knowledge by taking on different advisory roles in M&A processes. 


Konrad Zochowski 

Karen holds the International Compliance Association Certificate in Compliance (Merit) and the International Compliance Association Certificate in Anti Money Laundering.


Karen George

Maria has over 8 years of HR experience and joined Torch in 2021 from River and Mercantile. She plays a pivotal role in shaping Torch’s HR strategies to ensure the alignment of the workforce with the organisation's growth objectives. Her expertise extends to fostering a nurturing and inclusive company culture, developing and implementing employee development initiatives, and streamlining HR operations to enhance overall efficiency.

Maria holds a CIPD Level 5 Intermediate Diploma in Human Resources Practice, Human Resources Management and Services.

Maria Martin

Maria is the HR Manager of Torch Partners, responsible for a wide range of generalist responsibilities related to people strategy and the enhancement of talent, culture and employee experience within our growing workforce.

Our team operates seamlessly across the globe from our offices in London and Paris. In addition to the senior team, we have a first-class execution team of deal specialists drawn from twelve nationalities.

Torch Team

Our team operates seamlessly across the globe from our offices in London and Paris. In addition to the senior team, we have a first-class execution team and deal specialists drawn from twelve nationalities.

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