The private equity firm's debut growth fund has closed at its $76.6m hard cap following commitments from Henkel, Axa and Philips.

Sky Startup Investments & Partnerships has hired Eva Rez, a former investor at Episode 1 Ventures, to assume an investment manager position.

Sunfire, a provider of gas and fuel production equipment, has received $28.8m in a round led by new strategic partner Paul Wurth that included corporates CEZ and Total.

Founded out of TUM, transmission gear manufacturer ZG-Zahnräder und Getriebe has been bought by Mahle to bolster its integrated drive system capacity.

Tencent and Allianz-backed mobile bank N26 will use the proceeds from the Insight Venture Partners-led round, which valued it at $2.7bn, to expand into the US.

Vorwerk Ventures returned to reinvest in the smart luggage developer as part of an $11.4m round that also featured Project A and Milano Investment Partners.

ETH Zurich spinouts lifted their total funding haul to $173.3m from $123.1m in 2017.

PetaGene hopes its data compression technology will aid the genomic sequencing industry.

NUI Galway-linked businesses to have secured backing last year include kidney reflux test spinout Kite Medical and medical implant developer Loci Orthopaedics.

Celgene and Evotec both invested in Exscientia, as the automated drug discovery services provider added Roche to its roster of development partners.