MIT’s early-stage venture capital firm The Engine Ventures has raised $398m for its third fund, the largest to date, bringing the firm’s total AUM to more than $1bn. 

Fund III will invest in climate, human health and advanced systems technology. 

It exceeded its 2020 predecessor, which raised $250m, of which 10% was invested by neighbouring Harvard as a limited partner. At the time, it was the largest university-led venture capital fund in the US, according to Forbes. 

The firm was spun out of MIT in 2016 as The Engine and focuses on commercialisation in “tough tech”, which it describes as “a new asset class that translates breakthrough science and engineering from lab to market” in a press statement. 

The Engine Ventures has so far backed 56 companies. These include carbon capture technology developer Mantel; Mori, which develops water-based coatings to extend the shelf life of fresh food; Atlantic Quantum, which builds scalable quantum computers; and The Routing Company, which develops algorithms targeting public transport efficiency.

Apollo Global Management has appointed Roger Kempink as a partner within its client and product solutions team, based in London. In his new role, Kempink will lead the alternative asset manager’s private credit strategies globally. 

Apollo’s client and product solutions team oversees the firm’s fundraising and investor relations functions, encompassing its global wealth management solutions, institutional sales and global product teams. 

Kempink most recently served as partner and head of investor relations at Park Square Capital, having joined in 2014 and helped to establish its North American investor relations team in 2016. 

Prior to Park Square, Kempink worked at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Nomura and Lehman Brothers, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

According to its financial results, Apollo raised $40bn in capital in Q1 and originated a record $40bn in debt. In March, the firm launched a new private credit fund, Middle Market Apollo Institutional Private Lending, initially seeded with $290m from Mubadala Investment Company. 

The UK’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has indicated that the Labour Party will uphold favourable tax treatment for private equity executives in cases where fund managers invest their own capital, according to a report by the Financial Times. 

Labour aims to generate £565m annually by closing what it describes as a “loophole” that permits private equity managers to have a portion of their earnings — known as carried interest — taxed as capital gains rather than income. The latter is subject to a much higher tax rate. 

In an interview with the Financial Times, Reeves stated that private equity fund managers should pay income tax on their earnings from successful deals if they have not invested their own capital. 

She said that she disagreed with “what is essentially a bonus is taxed at a lower rate than employment income when you’re not putting your own capital at risk”. 

“If you are putting your own capital at risk it is appropriate that you pay capital gains tax.” 

She affirmed that most carried interest in the UK would be taxed as income. 

Reeves highlighted that UK private equity bosses currently invest only “tiny” sums of their own capital, adding that these amounts are “lower than many other countries require” to qualify for favourable tax treatment. Typically, private equity managers co-invest in their funds, contributing around 1% of the initial capital. In France and Italy, fund managers can qualify for reduced tax rates on carried interest if they invest similar amounts. 

Reeves clarified that the £565m annual tax figure Labour plans to raise by 2028-29 is based on 2020 estimates from the Resolution Foundation, though the think tank’s research did not consider potential factors such as fund managers relocating from the UK. 

Preferential tax treatment of carried interest in many countries has enabled private equity executives to avoid paying income taxes on over $1tn in incentive fees since 2000, according to recent research from Oxford University.