Bramalea, led by Fidelity Investments veterans, unveils debut tech fund

Emerging manager Bramalea Partners, launched by a pair of ex-Fidelity Investments principals, rolled out an inaugural offering earmarked for tech-focused growth equity deals.

The Boston private equity firm recently filed a Form D fundraising document for Bramalea Partners Fund, disclosing a $250 million target. No commitments were secured as of the date of the filing.

Bramalea was founded in early 2020 by managing partner Andrew Boyd and partner Matthew Blind, both veterans of Fidelity.

Boyd was with Fidelity for nearly 16 years, according to his LinkedIn profile, most recently as head of global equity capital markets. In that role, he led a private investing team focused on pre-IPO companies. Most investments, among them SpaceX and Uber, were in the technology, consumer and healthcare sectors.

Boyd was previously Fidelity’s managing director, special situations. He originated and executed $20 billion-plus in private debt and equity investments in public businesses. He also oversaw restructurings and workouts for high-yield bonds and leveraged loans.

Blind worked for nearly a decade at Fidelity, most recently as the head of investments for Fidelity Family Office Services, which gave him responsibility for portfolio construction, strategy and idea generation for large family offices. He started out there in asset management.

Public details about Bramalea and its strategy are few. The firm aims to take advantage of a capital demand-supply “imbalance” in the “middle rounds” between venture and growth to find opportunities for investing in tech-enabled companies, its LinkedIn profile reads. It will target large, mature industries “ripe for disruption” through innovation.

Bramalea is most interested in B2B tech-enabled, enterprise software and machine-learning opportunities, a person familiar with the matter told Buyouts. It will write checks of $10 million to $20 million for deals that value businesses from $200 million to $700 million.

Technology is one of the fundraising market’s hottest strategies. In January, Silver Lake secured $20 billion for a sixth flagship fund, the largest tech PE pool on record. This followed several major closings in 2020, among them the combined $22.8 billion haul by software investor Thoma Bravo.

The market is also seeing more tech-focused emerging managers. Along with Bramalea, examples include BayPine, co-led by David Roux, a founder and former co-CEO and chairman of Silver Lake.

Bramalea appears to have made at least one pre-fund investment. Last year, it was part of a syndicate of investors that provided $90 million in financing to Loadsmart, a Chicago digital freight brokerage and technology business. The deal was led by BlackRock and Chromo Invest.

Boyd is also identified as a CIO and director of Ivanhoe Capital Acquisition Corp, according to a Form S-1 filing. A special purpose acquisition company, Ivanhoe in January raised $276 million to invest in energy transition and electrification. The SPAC is led by mining executive Robert Friedland.

Bramalea declined to provide a comment on this story.