Venture Capital Bank Investment Criteria
This time I thought I'd promote the bank I work for a bit. It's deal hunting season and I get many business plans in my email. So in order to help prospective deal makers - I've jot down a bit about our investment criteria. Saves everyone a huge amount of time (and a few tears)!
Venture Capital Bank (or VC Bank for short) is a Bahrain based Islamic Investment Bank, focused on Venture Capital (VC), Private Equity (PE) and Real Estate (RE) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Currently, we're on the lookout for opportunities with great growth potential. A few pointers for deals that we're interested in are:
- Companies that are Shari'ah compliant – defense, alcohol, hotels (selling alcohol), etc are off our list.
- We are sector neutral, though we like to focus on oil and gas, retail, IT, education, good franchises, manufacturing, logistics.
- We invest in companies mostly for a majority, controlling stake and in exceptional cases - a large minority with sufficient board level controls, so investing in funds and fund of funds are ruled out. However, we do direct co-investments also.
- Our investment size sweet spot is in the range of USD 30 – USD 50 million, however we can do and have done larger deals in the past.
- Generally, our target IRR is in the 25% - 30% range or above. Anything below that is not usually considered as worthy of attention by investors.
- Our exits are generally after 4 – 5 years, and we have five companies in our portfolio which are being prepared for IPOs / Trade Sales.
- We are focused on companies that have a few years of track record (preferably three), a strong management team and good industry/sector growth opportunities and either based in the MENA region, or wish to expand into this part of the world seeking both equity finance (expansion capital) and contacts for establishing themselves in the region. Having said that, we do not invest in distressed companies/real estate.
- The Screening-to-Investment time frame will of course depend on the target company's readiness with information. Generally, we've seen well prepared company's take 2-3 months (including due diligence, negotiation).
- If in case, the company is identified as a startup / seed / concept or real estate development – we will put them in touch with our other teams (VC and RE).
You can check out our website and download the latest VCOMM newsletter in English and Arabic. If you have some time, check out our corporate video too.
How do you get started? If you think you've got a great deal - then contact me at jose@vc-bank.com or on (+973) 39114645.
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