Adara gathers momentum; 1 exit, 2 deals (03/07/2007)
In 2005 Adara Advisors SL launched its first fund, Adara Ventures SICAR, which closed at €50 million in August 2006. Its investment focus is globally-oriented ICT ventures that address Spain, Portugal and related markets. The fund’s launch was a very positive addition to the nascent high-tech VC landscape in the Iberian Peninsular.
|
Originally published at Tornado Insider 07/03/07 |
|---|
It is also pursuing a European dimension to its portfolio. Alberto Gomez, Managing Partner at Adara explained to me that, “some investment outside of Spain is good for diversification purposes. It also helps us build strong co-investment alliances with other European investors who may support our strategy in our core markets”.
This European strategy has brought Adara’s first exit. At the start of 2006, it invested alongside BayTech Venture at an early stage of Munich-based Eyesquad’s development. Less than a year after this €4 million Series A investment, Tessera has acquired Eyesquad for $20.16 million. The company was founded to develop technology for micro-cameras, with the primary market of mobile phone manufacturers. Its rapid development of digital auto-focus and optical zoom package got a lot of attention in the market. Gomez commented, “Eyesquad’s team has executed extremely well. Our normal investment horizon is four to five years, so we are happy to see such a successful exit in such a short space of time.”
Back in Spain, Adara has invested an undisclosed amount in Advanced Digital Design (ADD) as sole investor in the company’s first institutional financing. ADD is a fabless semiconductor design company producing integrated circuits for applications in home networking, automated meter reading, industrial automation & control and smart building design.
On the market for promising new businesses in Spain, Gomez said that, “the amount of interesting opportunities out there is good and the situation is improving. In terms of volume, we received one or two proposals a week in 2005; now this is up to four or five.” He cites increased angel participation as a factor in getting ventures from idea to early-stage, where venture capital can then be put to work. He explained, “In Spain, there are more ideas out there, more entrepreneurs looking for money and an increased willingness for angels to put money to work in developing new businesses. I think this is indicative of the Spain catching up with some of the Northern European countries as its economy and business environment develops and modernizes.”
The second investment that Adara just announced is a participation in the $22.5 million Series E financing of Cambridge Broadband Limited (CBL). This participation was in part motivated by the fact that Roberto de Saint-Malo, one of Adara’s partners, had previously made an investment through another fund so had intimate knowledge of the company. This removed a lot of the work required for due diligence to evaluate the investment. Gomez commented that, “as a later-stage investment, this is complementary in the development of the fund’s profile in terms of when investments are likely to approach exits”.