Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs) announced the final close of West Street Global Growth Partners (the fund) on Wednesday.
The fund, which closed at $5.2 billion, is Goldman Sachs’ inaugural direct private markets fund dedicated to investing in high-growth businesses with strong market positioning, high growth rates and durable business models. The fund represents the continuation of Goldman Sachs’ longstanding proprietary growth investing strategy.
The fund exceeded its initial fundraising target to close on $5.2 billion, including $3.7 billion of commitments from a diverse group of institutional and high net worth investors globally, alongside a significant commitment from Goldman Sachs and its employees – reportedly making it one of the largest first-time growth equity funds raised in history.
The fund is managed by the Growth Equity business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which is led by Darren Cohen, Nishi Somaiya and Stephanie Hui – based in New York, London and Hong Kong respectively. They lead one of the largest global growth equity teams, combining a deep local presence in markets across the US, Europe and Asia with insights and capabilities across sectors. The team has reportedly navigated multiple market cycles and environments to deliver consistent returns.
The team seeks to harness the expansive relationship networks and resources of the Goldman Sachs platform to source differentiated investments and help portfolio companies scale their businesses, expand their geographical footprint and drive long-term value creation.
“Goldman Sachs has a decades-long history of backing the world’s leading founders and bringing the full resources of the firm to help them scale and build category-defining businesses," said Julian Salisbury, chief investment officer for asset and wealth management at Goldman Sachs.
“We believe the pace of innovation across enterprise technology, financial technology, healthcare, and consumer businesses shows no sign of abating, and we are excited to work closely with portfolio companies to navigate volatility and reach the next stages of growth," he added.
The fund seeks minority stakes in businesses with an average investment size of approximately $50 million and will invest predominately in the early to mid-stage segments of the growth equity market. Building on the team’s deep global domain expertise, unique competitive position and extensive investment experience, the target sectors for the fund are enterprise technology, financial technology, healthcare and consumer.
The fund leverages Goldman Sachs’ proprietary operating platform, the GS Value Accelerator, to work with portfolio companies to build transformative businesses and create incremental value. The Value Accelerator includes a global network of operating advisors and sector experts who can support companies in scaling revenue, operational excellence, digital transformation, talent strategy and ESG optimisation.
West Street Global Growth Partners has already invested in a number of companies, diversified by geography and industry, including 4G Clinical, a leader in the randomisation and trial supply management market, AlphaSense, a market intelligence software company, Exotec, a robotic warehouse systems provider, Fortanix, a multi and hybrid cloud data security platform, Locus Robotics, a proprietary warehouse automation solution provider, MegaRobo, a life sciences robotics solutions provider in China, Starling Bank, a U.K.-based digital challenger bank, and Xempus, a corporate pension and life insurance distribution platform in Germany.
In India, investments made by the fund include MoEngage, a customer engagement platform that provides actionable insights into customer behavior and marketing automation, ElasticRun, a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform and a tech-enabled last mile logistics firm, and Swiggy, a food ordering and delivery company.
