MANAMA: GFH Financial Group has invested in a portfolio of pre-IPO stage, high-growth companies that specialise in next generation technologies.
The investment portfolio is held through a collective vehicle to provide diversification and comprises minority stakes in Snowflake, UiPath, DoorDash, DataRobot, Samsara, BYJUs and Outreach, among others.
The portfolio companies provide mission-critical cloud enterprise software, artificial intelligence and IoT solutions or operate in the direct-to-consumer e-commerce and edtech verticals.
The companies are led by highly capable management teams, have a leadership position in their respective domains and are operating at large scale across multiple geographies.
Most recently, Snowflake had an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange and it is expected that other companies in the portfolio will also go public and/or may enter into trade deals at an appropriate time.
The overall size of the collective investment vehicle is around $270 million with GFH holding a minority stake.
Resilient
The investments have remained relatively resilient during Covid-19 and are expected to generate high double digit returns for GFH and its investors, while providing attractive structural downside protection.
GFH’s investment management chief Hammad Younas said, “The investment companies have proven business models and competitive advantage that significantly compounds with scale. With a strong pipeline of investments, we expect to deploy significant capital in the technology sector globally. GFH aims to continue the implementation of its diversification strategy, with tech and tech-enabled businesses a key focus and growing area of investment.
“We will continue to draw on our deep experience in technology, payments and ecommerce in an effort to build a next-gen, transformational technology investment platform, which currently comprises lifestyle app, the Entertainer, and fintech business, Marshal. We believe tech and tech-driven businesses will become increasingly important during and after the pandemic.”
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