Western Europe

Lightyear, JC Flowers and GTCR are among the PE firms making tracks in the space this year.

Sovereign Capital, Atlantic Street Capital and Platinum Equity are among the firms investing in the education sector.

Dream Games is the developer and publisher of mobile games Royal Match and Royal Kingdom.

GlobalData is a data, insights and analytics platform.

TNP is a provider of network technology, connectivity and cyber security services.

Some of the biggest deals that closed in Q1 were in the TMT sector: Silver Lake bought Endeavor for about $10bn; IBM bought HashiCorp for $8.1bn; Blackstone and Vista bought Smartsheet for $7.9bn.

The agribusiness sector is yet to recover from fading interest in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic.

Aside from Pophouse Entertainment buying the KISS catalog for $300 million or HarbourView Equity Partners snapping up the music catalog assets of artists that include Nelly or Pat Benatar, smaller deals prevail.

'We have completed acquisitions that rival the size of what would have previously qualified as smaller, standalone platform investments,' says managing partner and co-founder Rory Devlin.