Business Areas

Private Equity

The Funds under management in the Private Equity area since 2005, invest in Portuguese companies with a high growth potential. This helps to enhance their development through growth in national and international markets, organically or through acquisition.

Best practice in terms of responsible investment includes the introduction of ESG criteria in both the decision making and monitoring of portfolio companies’ performance.

Relationships established since 2003 with privileged access to the most important businesses in the country, has allowed us to undertake the highest number of Private Equity transactions in Portugal. The high amounts invested in the Explorer Funds by the partners guarantee that Explorer Investments remains totally dedicated to maximising the return to investors.

The Explorer Investments’ team internally undertakes the analysis of potential investments and actively monitors the companies in the portfolio preparing them for divestment.

The Private Equity area, has various funds under management:

Explorer Investments works very closely with the management teams of the companies which make up the portfolio, monitoring them and supporting them in taking critical decisions. Value creation in portfolio companies results from the professionalisation of all aspects of management, from efficient process management through to the development of internal competencies. Growth is often achieved via internationalisation of a company’s activities and/or through the implementation of buy and build strategies.

Up to now, Explorer Investments has raised more than 600M€ across four funds. Since inception, Explorer Investments has undertaken over 20 initial investments and more than 30 additional investments, having successfully closed 13 divestments:

  • Explorer I (2004): Totally divested
  • Explorer II (2007): Capital 200M€ - In the monitoring and divestment phase. It has 2 portfolio companies.
  • Explorer III (2009): Totally divested - Monitoring the receipt of outstanding amounts post divestment.
  • Explorer IV (2018): Capital of 56M€ at present- Currently, it has 5 portfolio companies.
    The fund can undertake the acquisition of partial or total stakes in companies or inject capital to boost their growth. 

The Growth Capital area gives investment solutions to finance expansion and modernisation projects, with the aim of boosting the growth and competitiveness of the companies. This contributes to the development of new services and/or products, the improvement of operating efficiency and profitability, the professionalisation of management, internationalisation and an increase in exports.

The results achieved and recognition from the companies and their management teams have allowed for significant growth in this area, which at present has 468M€ under management, in the following funds:

  • Fundo Revitalizar Norte (FRN) (2013): Capital 80M€ - In the monitoring and divestment phase. Currently has 29 companies in its portfolio.
    With an initial allocation of 80M€, it invested 91M€ distributed over 39 portfolio companies in various sectors.
  • Explorer Growth Fund II, III, IV, V and VI (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023): Capital of 75M€, 46M€, 78M€, 113M€ and 100M€ respectively – All in an investment phase.

Growth funds have an objective to contribute to the companies’ improved competitiveness, namely through innovation and an increase in investment in R&D, with around 160M€ currently available to invest.

The following members were appointed to the Advisory Board for these Funds:

Jorge Portugal
He is the General Manager of COTEC Portugal – Business Association for Innovation. He has Management Experience in the areas of Innovation, Marketing and Quality of Service in the following sectors; TICs, Banks and Retailing. He was a Consultant for the President of the Portuguese Republic and the Government of Portugal.

Bernardo Almada Lobo
Full University Professor in Engineering and Industrial Management in Universidade do Porto (FEUP and Porto Business School), Co-founder and Partner of LTPLabs, Board Member of the Curators of the Belmiro de Azevedo Foundation. He was Manager for INESCTEC and Director of the Engineering Industrial Management Centre.

Rui Rodrigues
Member of the Board of Technophage s.a. Davi s.a, LX-Bio s.a, and GenIbet s.a. He was a Member of the Boards of Recipharm, LusoMedicamenta and of Janssen-Cilag.

João Neto
Researcher at Computer Science in INESC, Shareholder and Manager of Novabase SGPS, founder and important Shareholder of various technology companies in Portugal including NDrive, Petapilot, Cloudware, Nanopower and KuantoKusta.

Portfolio Private Equity