TL;DR
Eighteen48 Partners has closed EUR175 million for the first tranche of its inaugural private equity fund, targeting EUR350 million. The London-based firm backs European mid-market buyouts sourced through independent sponsors and has deployed more than EUR200 million in the strategy since 2020. The raise comes as the independent-sponsor model gains traction in Europe after a decade of growth in the US.
Eighteen48 Partners, the London-based alternative asset manager co-founded by Julien Sevaux, Tarek AbuZayyad, and Edward Clive, has closed €175 million for the first tranche of its inaugural private equity fund. The fund is targeting €350 million in total and will back mid-market buyouts across Europe, sourced exclusively through independent sponsors, dealmakers who find and negotiate acquisitions before raising the capital to complete them, rather than investing from a pre-committed pool.
The first close was backed by a mix of existing Eighteen48 clients, institutions, family offices, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. The firm has deployed more than €200 million into independent-sponsor transactions since 2020, making this fund a formalisation of a strategy the team has been executing for six years rather than a debut in the conventional sense.
How the model works
Independent sponsors occupy an unusual niche in private equity. Unlike traditional buyout firms, which raise a blind-pool fund and then go looking for deals, independent sponsors identify a specific acquisition target first and then approach capital providers to finance it. The model gives investors visibility into exact deal terms before committing money, rather than trusting a general partner to deploy a fund over several years with limited oversight.
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For the sponsors, the trade-off is that they carry deals without guaranteed financing, a risk that limits the model to experienced operators with strong networks. For capital providers such as Eighteen48, the opportunity is access to off-market transactions that never enter the competitive auction processes where most mid-market private equity deals are priced. Oliver Mayer, Eighteen48’s head of private equity, described the structural advantages of these relationship-driven deals as a key driver of the firm’s returns.
A model crossing the Atlantic
Independent sponsors have been a well-established feature of the American private equity landscape for more than a decade, but the model is relatively new in Europe. A combination of factors is driving adoption: experienced dealmakers leaving established firms to operate independently, family offices seeking more direct exposure to private companies, and a broader reconfiguration of European capital markets that is pushing investors toward more flexible structures. The EU’s own efforts to overhaul its startup funding architecture have further normalised the idea that European companies need access to a wider range of capital providers, not just traditional fund managers.
According to IPEM, the private equity industry body, Europe now has a growing ecosystem of independent sponsors, and more deals of this type are expected in 2026 as the broader fundraising environment for traditional blind-pool funds remains challenging. Nearly 70% of European private equity professionals surveyed by the organisation said they plan to deploy more capital this year, and 87% described 2026 as a good year for dealmaking, the most bullish sentiment in five years.
Eighteen48’s peers in the independent-sponsor-focused segment include Kartesia, which manages nearly €6 billion in private credit strategies, and Idinvest Partners, a pan-European mid-market investor. The distinction Eighteen48 draws is that it has been investing directly in independent-sponsor deals for six years before launching a formal fund, giving it a track record that most first-time fund managers lack.
The founders
Sevaux, the firm’s founding partner and chief executive, previously co-founded Stanhope Capital in 2004. He and his co-founders established Eighteen48 in 2019 as what they described as a “next-generation private investment office”, a platform that manages capital across public and private markets for families and institutions. The private equity fund is the first vehicle Eighteen48 has raised externally, a step that reflects both the growth of its independent-sponsor deal pipeline and the increasing institutional appetite for European mid-market exposure.
The fund’s target of €350 million is modest by global private equity standards but substantial for the independent-sponsor segment, where deal sizes typically range from €10 million to €150 million. If fully raised, it would make Eighteen48 one of the larger dedicated capital providers for independent sponsors in Europe, a position that, if the current momentum in European dealmaking holds, could prove well-timed.
Sevaux said the fund “formalises a highly differentiated strategy” the firm has been running for several years. In a market where most private equity firms compete for the same auctioned assets, Eighteen48 is betting that the deals no one else sees are the ones worth paying for.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
