Good morning, dealmakers. MK Flynn, here, with today’s Wire on 3.14, also known as Pi Day (more on that, below).
Global infrastructure. In private equity news this morning, KKR announced the final closing of its KKR Global Infrastructure Investors IV, a $17 billion fund focused on pursuing global infrastructure investment opportunities with an emphasis on investments in OECD countries in North America and Western Europe.
As KKR points out, “the closing comes at a time of significant growth in demand for private infrastructure investment, particularly in sectors including digital communications, energy transition, transportation, water, waste, and industrial infrastructure, among others. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, supporting projected levels of GDP growth will require $3.7 trillion of annual investment in global infrastructure between 2017 and 2035, which could increase by an additional $1 trillion annually to meet the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.”
Said Brandon Freiman, head of North American infrastructure at KKR: “Global demand for building and upgrading critical infrastructure, as well as supporting responsible energy transition and growing broadband access, requires funding far in excess of public sources, which provides a big opportunity for private capital.”
Accountable care. In healthcare coverage, PE Hub is spotlighting VSS’s recent exit of Caravan Health, which the PE firm sold to Signify Health for $250 million in February. After three brief years of ownership, VSS more than doubled the target’s revenue. Aaron spoke with David Bainbridge, managing director at VSS, about Caravan’s growth path and the PE firm’s decision to sell when opportunity came knocking.
Founded in 2013, Caravan helps hospitals and physicians that care for underserved populations succeed in value-based care. The company aims to bring safety net and community health systems together to deliver high-quality, patient-focused care at a low cost in a culturally sensitive way.
The investment came right before covid turned the world upside down, but Bainbridge said that covid actually helped the company. “We were helping hospitals through accountable care organizations manage their Medicare populations,” said Bainbridge. “So, for us it was all about arming the hospitals with additional training tools, resources to help support covid efforts and through vaccinations as well. Covid got us closer to our customers, and they got to see the benefit of having an outside group to help them with care management overall.”
For more, see the full story.
Happy Pi Day! Today’s date is 3.14, which means it’s Pi Day! To celebrate, check out 100DIGITS, a video and online database featuring women and non-binary “icons in STEM.” In the video, the icons recite the first 100 digits of Pi. The project is the brainchild of Izzy Lapidus, a sophomore at Barnard College, who hopes to inspire young people to pursue paths in STEM. The icons come from a wide range of fields, including C-suite executives, entrepreneurs, scientific researchers, content creators, venture capitalists and private equity investors.
Among those featured is fintech investor Angela Zhang, director, GI Partners, who was recently named to our Women in private equity: The class of 2022. Other participants include Sian Beilock, the president of Barnard College and a cognitive scientist; Dana Bolles, NASA’s mission AstroAccess ambassador and advocate for disability in STEM; and Sofia Ongele, activist and developer of ReDawn, a mobile app supporting sexual assault survivors. I also participated in the project, which you can view here and on @izzylapidus on Instagram. And if you’re looking for a refresher course on what, exactly, pi is, check out this article in Scientific American.
That’s all for today.
Until tomorrow, MK
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