Enterprise Investors announces the closing of its first venture capital fund

The largest investor in Enterprise Venture Fund I is the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which along with its Argonaut Ventures unit has invested more than $1 billion in privately-held companies and venture capital funds globally. The other investors in EVF are international financial institutions that have been working with EI for several years.

The first venture capital fund in the Enterprise Investors group has been formed in response to the market’s demand for capital to finance the dynamic development of SMEs in Central and Eastern Europe. It is the largest fund of its type in Poland and the CEE region.

“We raised the new fund to meet the huge demand among smaller companies for private equity/venture capital financing.
EI grew together with the Central European business leaders by investing ever greater sums in individual projects. However,
we are also aware of the needs of the new generation of companies, which are well placed to join the group of largest
and most successful enterprises in the future. These are the companies we intend to finance from the capital of Enterprise Venture Fund I,” said Jacek Siwicki, president of Enterprise Investors.

“We have allocated the capital from EVF for companies that are active on the market, have a proven and successful business model and generate revenues and profits, at least at the operating profit level. We have already been contacted by companies seeking expansion capital, and are in advanced talks with some of them,” added Rafał Bator, a partner at Enterprise Investors, who leads the venture capital team.

Enterprise Venture Fund I will target companies in the technology sector (IT, telecoms and media) as well as attractive projects from such sectors as retail, manufacturing, business and financial services, and consumer goods. EVF’s investments will range from €1 million to €5 million per project. The fund will focus on providing expansion capital.

Given EI’s fundamental rule of investing in companies whose management teams have a realistic and well thought out development concept, the fund will most often take minority positions in its portfolio companies and will support the owners and the management teams from the supervisory board level.

During its first year of activity EVF will predominantly invest in Poland, but thereafter it will expand to those countries of Central and Eastern Europe where Enterprise Investors is already present. The venture capital team was created in April 2008
and presently numbers four investment professionals. The team is being supported by EI’s senior partners who have been making equity investments in the region for the last 20 years.

Enterprise Investors pioneered private equity in Poland and CEE following its inception in 1990, and has developed many innovative transactions and initiatives over the last 18 years. EI has a reputation for being one of the most active, creative
and flexible institutional investors. At the same time the firm has achieved outstanding investment results.

Since inception Enterprise Investors has been an active venture capital/private equity investor in the technology sector. Its funds have invested almost €50 million in 11 firms from this industry. They have been involved in building the market value of major Polish and CEE IT and telecommunications firms. This is the sector in which EI funds have achieved their best investment results, in some cases achieving returns exceeding seven times the original cost. EI funds are now shareholders in AVG Technologies, the Czech anti-virus software provider that has become a global giant with 70 million users worldwide, as well as in Siveco, Romania’s largest IT company.

With the closing of EVF, total funds raised by EI amount to €1.7 billion. To date, the six private equity funds managed by Enterprise Investors have invested €1.1 billion in 108 companies across many sectors in Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria,
the Czech Republic and the Baltic States. EI funds have exited 91 investments, achieving total proceeds of €1.3 billion.
Twenty-five of these exits have been IPOs on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.