Verdane bolsters investment team with hire of Helena Svancar as Partner

Verdane, the European specialist growth equity investor, has announced the hire of Helena Svancar as a Partner, based in London. Helena brings decades of experience in M&A and joins at a time of continued growth for Verdane.

Helena joined Verdane in September 2022 as a Partner in the investment team. Prior to Verdane, Helena was the Head of M&A at Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications technology company. Helena has more than two decades’ experience as an investment professional and spent ten years at Deutsche Bank, where she was Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance Nordics. She also serves on the boards of publicly listed companies including Truecaller, the leading Caller ID and spam blocking app.

Helena’s appointment reflects Verdane’s continued growth and strengthening of its capabilities as the preferred partner to ambitious technology-enabled growth businesses across Europe. Helena will be based in Verdane’s London office, which opened in 2016 and now comprises 10 investment professionals.

Bjarne Kveim Lie, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Verdane said: “We are excited to welcome Helena to the Verdane team. With her in-depth knowledge of the latest developments in the exciting field of communications technoloy combined with decades of M&A experience, Helena will bring a wealth of valuable networks and expertise to Verdane and the companies we back across Europe. She will also strengthen our senior presence on the ground in the UK market.”

Helena Svancar, Partner at Verdane, commented: “I am excited to harness my experience leading M&A at Ericsson to help Verdane’s businesses cover technology gaps and conquer adjacent markets. I am a firm believer in the power of technology to create a better future, and together with my new colleagues at Verdane I look forward to help build the preferred growth partner to ambitious businesses that will thrive in a more sustainable world.”

The past 18 months have seen significant activity at Verdane, with new investments including Cleanwatts, EVA Global, FiksuRuoka, Instabox, meister, Onomondo and Papirfly coupled with a period of high exit activity. Verdane funds have returned more than EUR 1.5 billion to investors over the last 18 months.

Recent significant staff announcements at Verdane include the promotion of Christopher Parmo to Partner, announced in March. This year has also seen a number of hires across Verdane’s investment and administrative teams, as well as its in-house operational experts team, Elevate.