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Investment and fundraising strong in 2007, final EVCA figures confirm23/06/2008. Source: AltAssets. 
 European private equity firms invested €73.8bn in 2007, up from €71.2bn in 2006, with buy-out investments increasing to €58.3bn from €50.3bn in 2006, while venture investments dropped to €12bn from €17.3bn, according to the final figures for 2007 released by the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association and compiled by PEREP_Analytics, an independent data-gathering body.
About 5,200 European companies received investments in 2007, of which 85 per cent were companies with fewer than 500 employees. UK companies received 29 per cent of the total amount invested in European companies, followed by France (16.4 per cent) and Germany (14.7 per cent).
On the buyout side, the most popular sector both by amount invested and by number of deals was business and industrial products, which represented 14.8 per cent of the total amount invested and 18.1 per cent of the total number of companies invested.
Venture and growth investments (which EVCA combines into one category) focused on the communications, life sciences and computer and electronics sectors, both by amount invested and by number of deals.
Georges Noël, the director of EVCA's Venture Capital Platform, said, 'While the statistics show a drop in activity for European venture capital in 2007, sentiment in the marketplace remains very positive. Sources even indicate that there seems to be an upswing in activity in Q1 2008. General partners indicate that deals are getting larger, entry prices are low and that the quality of deals is high, so there is a positive attitude in the market related to the comeback of venture in Europe.'
While private equity fundraising scaled back from the record levels in 2006, it remained strong at €79bn in 2007. Of the total, €60bn was allocated to buy-out and €10.4bn to venture and growth capital - a split similar to 2006.
With 19.5 per cent of the total amount raised, the US continued to be the largest source of capital for European funds, followed closely by the UK with 16.9 per cent. Greece, Germany and Asia came next with 9.2 per cent, 8.8 per cent and seven per cent, respectively.
Pension funds, funds of funds and banks were the highest ranking LPs, with shares of 18 per cent, 11.2 per cent and 11.8 per cent of the total, respectively.
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