Evolution Equity Partners announced on 17 July the final closing of a new fund with total capital commitments of $125mn to make investments in cybersecurity and next generation enterprise software and services in North America, Europe and Israel.

The fund exceeded its target and is backed by leading institutional investors, corporates, family offices and technology entrepreneurs from the US and Europe, including Cisco Investments, the European Investment Fund (EIF), Witelo Fund (PZU Insurance Group) and Alpha Associates among others.

The Evolution Technology Fund will make investments in the range of $5mn to $25mn in early and growth stage companies in cybersecurity and in companies utilising machine learning, big data, software as a service (SaaS), mobile and the convergence of consumer and enterprise software to build market leading platforms.

Evolution says it sees tremendous opportunity in Europe, the US and Israel to partner and invest in next generation cybersecurity and enterprise software companies and help position them for international growth. A Global Cybersecurity Index released on July 5 by the UN International Telecommunication Union recently chronicled and ranked the relative progress made in cybersecurity in small nations and large nations alike among 195 surveyed countries.

New York and Zurich-based Evolution Equity Partners was founded by investor and technology entrepreneurs Richard Seewald and Dennis Smith, who manage and lead the firm. They are joined by partners Karel Obluk (former CTO, AVG Technologies), J.R. Smith (former CEO, AVG Technologies), and a specialist team of professionals.

“Evolution’s sector focus, along with the partners’ deep operating, technical and product development expertise allows us to take a concentrated approach in identifying leading entrepreneurial companies poised for growth,” said managing partner Seewald. “We see tremendous opportunity in Europe, North America and Israel alike where management teams of rapidly growing software companies seek investors that can help with international expansion. Evolution has considerable experience in developing and exploiting new markets internationally and has become a preferred partner for cybersecurity and enterprise software entrepreneurs. The closing of the Evolution Technology Fund L.P. demonstrates the commitment of our global investors to our strategy and approach.”

“We are in the early innings of a secular trend in the cybersecurity space that involves increased spend by large enterprises, smaller businesses and consumers alike, an expanding threat landscape, market consolidation and demand for next generation products and services that makes this a very compelling segment for investment,” said managing partner Dennis Smith. “Likewise the enterprise software and services segment is experiencing unprecedented disruptive forces –cloud, mobile, hyper connectivity – that position next generation companies well while creating attractive investment opportunity.”