Synova Capital


Synova Capital is a private equity firm specialising in investments in UK and Irish growth companies. The firm manages £750m of capital on behalf of institutional investors and family offices and invests across four sectors: Technology, Healthcare and Education, Business Services and Financial Services. Synova is focused on working with management teams to accelerate growth and drive exceptional returns.
The firm was named House of the Year at the 2019 British Private Equity Awards, the third time in six years Synova has won this prestigious accolade.
Synova was founded in 2007 by its managing partners, David Menton and Philip Shapiro. Synova's other partners include Tim Ashlin, Alex Bowden, Daniel Parker and Zachary Tsai.
Synova's 2007 Fund I was fully realised in 2018 generating a 4x return for investors. Synova's £110m 2013 Fund II has now returned three times its total invested capital following exits in 2018 and 2019 with only half the fund realised. Synova closed its 2016 third fund at £250 million which is performing strongly and recently closed its 2019 fourth fund at its £365m hard cap.
2018 was a strong year for exits for Synova with the sale of software company Mandata to LDC generating a 8x return and the sale of medical imaging business 4ways to ECI for a 6x return and 75% IRR. This followed the sale of Kinapse to Hg Capital on 1 February 2016, generating a 16x return and a 126% IRR. Other notable exits include dbg for 6x cost and TLG for 3x cost.
2019 continued in the same vain for Synova with further exits from Fund II including the £268m sale of Stackhouse Poland to AJ Gallagher for a 5.6x return, the £150m sale of Meritsoft to Cognizant for a 4.0x return and the £73m sale of Defaqto to SimplyBiz plc for a 3.9x return.

Current and past* investments

CompanyYear of investmentReturnSector
TLG Brands*2008 - Exited 20163.0xConsumer
Clearwater Care*2009 - Exited 20172.5xHealthcare
dbg*2010 - Exited 20135.8xHealthcare
Kinapse*2012 - Exited 201616.1xHealthcare
Mandata*2013 - Exited 20188.0xTechnology
MK Test2014Technology
Stackhouse Poland*2014 - Exited 20195.6xFinancial Services
Defaqto*2015 - Exited 20193.9xTechnology
4Ways Healthcare*2015 - Exited 20186.0xHealthcare
Merit Software*2015 - Exited 20194.0x-
Vistair2015Technology
Clyde Munro Dental2015Healthcare
Travelsmart2015Technology
Fairstone2016Financial Services
Oakland2016Healthcare
Avantra2017Technology
AllClear2018Financial Services
Mintec2018Technology
Chatsworth Schools2019Education
Pacifica2019Business Services
Mediatonic2019Technology
Preventx2019Healthcare
Charnwood Molecular2020Healthcare