PEI Staff

 ABRY Partners acquired SiteLock, which provides website security. ABRY will work with SiteLock to develop new products. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. 

Craig Dupper, an ex-Solis Capital Partners executive, launched Elan Growth Partners to focus on investments in manufacturing, software, business services and food. Elan closed an initial fundraising round that was offered to select investors. The firm did not disclose how much it raised. Another ex-Solis executive, Max Young, will join Dupper on May 1.

BV Investment Partners and TriCore Solutions, a BV Fund VIII portfolio company, invested in REAN Cloud, LLC. Financial terms weren't disclosed. The existing owners of the Herndon, Virginia-based company, which is a partner of Amazon Web Services and provides cloud operations, will retain majority ownership.

Oxer Capital, Inc. launched its Oxer BCP Mezzanine Fund, L.P. to provide capital to private companies in the lower middle-market. The fund, which has raised more than $122 million in private and SBA-backed capital, was created by Mark Bahlmann, Frank Capella and Dan Phlegar. The fund is a Small Business Investment Company and is licensed by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

European Capital Private Debt, LP, the mid-market direct lending fund of European Capital Fund Management Limited, closed with total commitments of €473.5 million ($540 million). The Fund, which provides financing for sponsor-led acquisitions of European mid-market firms, has already invested €320 million in 14 portfolio companies.  

Springwater Capital, a private equity firm based in Madrid, and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. agreed to form a joint venture aimed at bringing cruises to Spanish and French tourists. The joint venture, which is expected to be completed later this year,  will be carried out through the management of the Pullmantur and Croisières de France cruise brands of Royal Caribbean Cruises.

Aptinyx Inc has completed a $65 million Series A financing round led by New Leaf Venture Partners. New investors Frazier Healthcare Partners, Longitude Capital and Osage University participated in the round. Existing investors including Adams Street Partners, LVP Life Science Ventures, PathoCapital, Goudy Park Capital, Beecken Petty O'Keefe & Company and Northwestern University also took part. Evanston, Illinois-based Aptinyx is abiopharmaceutical company developing treatments of neurological disorders.

Taiho Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, of Tokyo, said May 10 that it has formed a U.S. corporate venture capital arm, Taiho Ventures. Taiho will invest in startups that focus on discovering and developing products that treat cancer. It will initially make investments from a pooled amount of $50 million.

MIODx, a pioneer in cancer biomarker detection, has closed its seed round with $1.5 mln. The funds will be used for the completion of the clinical utility study as well as commercialization of its oncology testing platform VerifyDx. The company has also entered into a lease to occupy 3,000 square feet at the San Jose BioCube.