Claret Capital Closes €575M Fund IV Using ELTIF to Bring Private Wealth Into European Growth Debt

Claret Capital Partners closed its fourth European growth debt fund at €575 million on September 7, 2026, beating a €500 million target and, for the first time, bringing private wealth investors into the strategy through an ELTIF. The ELTIF, or European Long-Term Investment Fund, is an EU-regulated wrapper that lets non-institutional money into long-dated private assets — a structure that only became meaningfully accessible to private wealth after a 2024 rule overhaul. The raise splits into €440 million in limited partner commitments and €135 million in affiliated discretionary mandates, with 32% of the capital already deployed across 27 companies.

How Claret's Fund IV Came Together

Claret Capital Partners has operated from London since 2013, providing what the industry calls growth debt. Growth debt is not equity. The firm lends money to growth-stage companies, typically secured against recurring revenue, intellectual property, or other tangible assets. Founders retain their ownership stakes. The loan repays, with interest, from future cash flows or from proceeds at a liquidity event.

Individual loan sizes range from €2 million to €100 million, evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Capital can support organic growth, acquisitions, capital expenditure, working capital, research and development, geographical expansion, and bridge financing between equity rounds, according to the firm's published disclosures.

Fund IV reached a final close at €575 million total. The structure breaks into two streams: €440 million in direct limited partner commitments and €135 million from affiliated discretionary mandates, which are co-investment arrangements where partners grant Claret authority to deploy their capital alongside the main fund. The firm has not named those discretionary partners.

Managing partners David Bateman and Johan Kampe announced the close on September 7. Bateman said the raise "not only validates our approach and track record but is also a massive vote of confidence for the European technology, life sciences and impact ecosystems." Kampe addressed borrower demand directly: "As equity markets remain more selective and founders look for ways to grow without unnecessary dilution, we expect demand for flexible, non-dilutive capital to keep accelerating."

At announcement, 32% of the fund had already been deployed across 27 companies. Five are publicly named: Billie (B2B buy-now-pay-later platform), PRODA (commercial real estate software), Surfe (B2B sales intelligence), Cinclus Pharma (clinical-stage pharmaceutical company), and Inventiva (clinical-stage biotech).

Claret describes itself as Europe's largest independent growth debt fund manager, and the word "independent" carries real meaning. Kreos Capital assembled a larger fund at €1.25 billion, but BlackRock acquired Kreos in 2023. With that acquisition, the largest balance sheet in European venture lending moved inside one of the world's largest asset managers. A dedicated independent specialist and a division of a multi-trillion-dollar firm operate differently, even when the lending strategy looks similar on paper.

Why Growth Debt Attracts Capital When Equity Gets Expensive

The economics of growth debt look most attractive when equity is scarce or expensive. When valuation multiples compress, the ownership stake a founder must give up to raise an equity round grows in real terms. A loan, priced at a defined rate and paid back over time, costs something different: a known interest expense rather than permanent dilution of the cap table.

Life sciences illustrates the advantage clearly. Two of Fund IV's five named portfolio companies, Cinclus Pharma and Inventiva, are clinical-stage drug developers. These businesses routinely spend ten years or more between initial funding and first product revenue. Each equity round in that period permanently reduces the founding team's ownership. A debt instrument that bridges a funding gap without adding to the cap table has genuine economic value in that context.

Deep tech carries the same dynamic. Development timelines extend beyond what a traditional venture equity model expects, and lending against revenue is a practical answer to the mismatch between long development cycles and the typical fund life.

Fund III gives buyers of this story some outcome data. That fund closed at €297 million in 2022 and produced exits across five named portfolio companies. Cytora was acquired by Applied Systems, Endomag by Hologic, Logpoint by Summa Equity, Lyst by ZOZO, and Tiqets by Expedia. Abivax listed on Nasdaq from the same vintage. Those results formed the track record Claret presented to Fund IV limited partners.

Geographically, Claret is moving lending decisions closer to the companies it backs. The firm now has team members based in Paris and plans to add staff in Berlin, putting capital allocation closer to the two continental markets producing the most European growth-stage companies after the UK.

The ELTIF Wrapper: What It Is and Why It Changed

An ELTIF is an EU-regulated fund structure designed to channel private capital toward long-dated, illiquid investments: private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and real assets. The asset manager running the ELTIF can deploy it across those categories, subject to portfolio composition rules set by EU regulation. For an investor, the ELTIF is the access point, the fund vehicle, rather than the investment strategy itself.

The original ELTIF regulation passed in 2015, but the market failed to scale. By 2021, total ELTIF assets across the EU stood at approximately €2.4 billion, a figure the European Parliament cited as evidence that the framework had not developed as intended. Low uptake reflected structural problems: the minimum investment threshold for retail investors was too high, eligible assets were defined too narrowly, and liquidity terms made the product unattractive for wealth management distribution.

The revised framework, known as ELTIF 2.0, took effect as Regulation EU 2023/606 on March 15, 2023, with application starting in January 2024. Three changes mattered most. First, the prior minimum investment threshold for retail investors was removed. Under the original rules, that floor had kept most private wealth clients out. Second, the regulation broadened eligible assets, including third-country investments and fund-of-funds structures. Third, managers gained flexibility to build in limited liquidity windows, making it possible to design a product that wealth managers could actually recommend to clients.

Law firm Loyens and Loeff described the practical effect of the new framework: ELTIFs now benefit from an EU passport, allowing a single authorized fund to be marketed across EU member states without separate country-level authorization for each jurisdiction. That passporting is one reason wealth managers find ELTIFs more practical to distribute than bespoke national private fund structures.

For Claret, adding an ELTIF alongside Fund IV means wealth managers across EU member states can allocate client assets to a European growth debt strategy that previously required institutional LP status. The European Commission has made private wealth mobilization a stated goal through its Capital Markets Union program. The Commission's October 2024 Capital Markets Union update identified broadening retail access to private assets as a core structural objective, and Claret Fund IV is one of the first examples of a growth debt manager using the reformed framework to reach that distribution channel.

What US Accredited Investors Can Access Instead

The United States has no direct equivalent to an ELTIF. Two structures come closest for US accredited investors.

The first is the non-traded Business Development Company, or BDC. A BDC is a regulated investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940. To maintain that status, BDCs must invest at least 70% of assets in qualifying US private companies and must distribute at least 90% of taxable investment income to shareholders annually. Non-traded BDCs reach investors through broker-dealer networks, making them accessible to accredited investors and, in some formats, qualified purchasers. Many focus on middle-market lending, creating a functional overlap with European growth debt, though the borrower universe and regulatory home differ.

The second structure is the interval fund, a type of closed-end fund that offers periodic redemption windows, typically quarterly, capped at a defined percentage of net assets. Interval funds can invest in illiquid alternatives but must provide those redemption opportunities, which constrains how the underlying capital is deployed. A manager running an interval fund cannot commit capital with the same long-dated certainty as a fully closed vehicle.

The comparison below maps the key structural differences:

Feature	ELTIF (EU)	Non-Traded BDC (US)	Interval Fund (US)
Regulatory framework	Regulation EU 2023/606 (ELTIF 2.0)	Investment Company Act of 1940	Investment Company Act of 1940
Eligible investors	Retail and institutional across EU member states	Accredited investors; some formats open to qualified purchasers	Accredited investors; some retail formats with suitability screening
Eligible assets	Private equity, private debt, real assets, infrastructure (EU and third countries)	Primarily debt and equity in US private companies (70% qualifying asset minimum)	Broad alternatives per fund prospectus; manager discretion applies
Liquidity terms	Long-dated, closed-end; ELTIF 2.0 permits optional liquidity windows	Periodic tender offers; frequency and size vary by manager	Quarterly redemption windows capped at a net asset percentage
Cross-border distribution	EU passport: single authorization covers all member states	US broker-dealer and RIA networks; no EU passport	US distribution only

Neither US structure maps cleanly onto what Claret does. An ELTIF is purpose-built for long-dated European private assets, with cross-border passporting and design flexibility for growth lending to pre-revenue or early-revenue companies across the EU. If you are a US accredited investor who wants exposure to European growth debt, your practical path runs through a direct GP relationship or a placement agent who connects US capital to the fund, not through a regulated retail-accessible product designed for broad wealth management distribution the way ELTIF 2.0 enables in Europe. That gap is the structural difference Claret's ELTIF is built to close within Europe, even if no equivalent access pathway exists on the US side.

What the Fund Has Not Disclosed

Several details are absent from what Claret has published, and they are relevant to any evaluation of this fund as an investment opportunity.

Fund terms are not disclosed. The management fee, carried interest rate, preferred return hurdle, and total expense ratio have not been made public, nor has a target net IRR or cash-on-cash multiple for Fund IV.

The partners behind the €135 million in affiliated discretionary mandates are not named. That sum represents roughly 23% of the total fund. Who those co-investors are and on what terms they commit capital alongside the main fund is not part of the public record.

Minimum LP commitment sizes for Fund IV are not public. The loan sizes Claret provides to portfolio companies range from €2 million to €100 million, but the threshold to participate in the fund as a limited partner is not published. Any investor approaching this fund through a wealth manager would need to request those terms directly from the GP.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is growth debt, and how does it differ from a traditional bank loan?

Growth debt is lending to companies that may lack the stable historical cash flows or hard collateral a bank requires. Banks extend credit based on proven earnings and physical assets. Growth debt lenders evaluate revenue trajectory, customer contract quality, intellectual property, and the quality of existing equity investors. Claret's loans run from €2 million to €100 million per deal and are structured to give borrowers runway to reach growth milestones without surrendering equity in exchange.

Can a US accredited investor access an ELTIF directly?

No. ELTIFs are EU-regulated structures distributed within EU member states under EU passporting rules. A US investor needs a direct relationship with the general partner or access through a placement agent, and would invest in the underlying institutional fund directly rather than through the ELTIF wrapper.

What does Claret's track record look like across earlier funds?

Fund III, which closed at €297 million in 2022, produced documented exits from five named companies: Cytora to Applied Systems, Endomag to Hologic, Logpoint to Summa Equity, Lyst to ZOZO, and Tiqets to Expedia, with Abivax listing on Nasdaq. In May 2023, the firm also launched a €72 million Opportunity Fund for follow-on capital in its strongest-performing portfolio companies, indicating conviction in a subset of its holdings ahead of Fund IV.

Why does the €1.5 billion deployed figure exceed the €1.3 billion total capital raised?

The gap reflects capital recycling. Growth debt funds receive principal repayments when loans mature or portfolio companies exit. That returned capital gets redeployed to new borrowers within the same investment period. Across four fund vintages over 13 years, Claret has raised €1.3 billion in LP commitments but deployed more than €1.5 billion by reinvesting repaid principal into successive loans across 210 or more companies.

Author Disclosure: Jeff Barnes, MBA has no personal position in any company, fund, or platform named in this article. Angel Investors Network has no current commercial relationship with any party mentioned. AIN provides marketing and education services, not investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investments involve risk, including loss of principal.