Claret beats target with €575m growth-debt fund

Claret Capital Partners has closed its fourth European growth-debt fund at €575 million (£493.7 million), clearing the €500 million target it was raised against, and it is not easing into deployment: 32 percent of the capital is already invested across 27 venture and growth companies in technology, life sciences and impact sectors, Alternative Credit Investor reported.

The portfolio spans Billie, a B2B buy-now-pay-later platform; Cinclus Pharma and Inventiva, both clinical-stage drug developers; Proda, which sells software to commercial real estate owners; and Surfe, a B2B sales intelligence firm — one design across different sectors: capital that finances growth without forcing founders and early backers into another equity round. David Bateman, Claret's managing partner, framed the product as launch support: "Lenders like ourselves just add fuel to the rocket as they are trying to get it to take off," he told Alternative Credit Investor, and growth companies "are choosing to use our product because it helps reduce the dilution to the early investors."

The close was 15 percent above target and nearly doubled the €297 million that Claret's third fund raised at final close in 2022, bringing the firm to €1.3 billion raised and €1.5 billion deployed across 210 companies, according to figures it provided to ACI.

Fund IV drew commitments from pension plans, insurance companies, family offices and other public and institutional investors, with private-wealth commitments arriving through an ELTIF structure and co-investment partnerships running alongside for large backers who wanted deal-level exposure rather than blind-pool risk.

Growth debt in Europe has been mostly an institutional conversation; a private-wealth sleeve means Claret is now taking its pitch to the same push into newer corners of private credit that is drawing allocators past plain-vanilla direct lending. Managers who can raise from pension plans and private individuals at the same time are selling from a bigger pool, and the appetite for this corner of the market looks built to last as long as company equity stays expensive.

Bateman describes the current European venture market as one of "substantial demand" for capital, with money going into dual-use technology, artificial intelligence and deep tech, sectors that "are more sensitive and behaving differently to four or five years ago." For a lender standing between those companies and their early investors, the shift cuts toward the product: growth equity is costly where growth debt does not dilute.

The final close is also funding a platform build-out: Claret is expanding its pan-European footprint, with new team members now based in Paris and Berlin to follow, and Bateman told ACI the firm intends to reinforce its Berlin presence before the end of the year. Hiring while capital is still being deployed is a sign the managers expect to keep writing checks.

Raising €75 million over target and investing a third of the vehicle before the close means the deals were waiting and the scarce input was the fund itself — European growth debt is undersupplied, with companies wanting nondilutive capital and managers with a track record of underwriting it remaining the gating factor. For allocators, the number to watch is the €391 million, 68 percent of Fund IV, still to be invested. Claret spent the first €184 million before the final close; whether it can spend the rest at the same pace is the question the Berlin office opens with.