We are pleased to welcome Aluna Partners to the Percent platform. Founded in 2021, Aluna makes venture financing frictionless by providing a comprehensive portfolio of services including valuation and capital structure, equity private placements, private debt, M&A transactions, and strategic consulting. From its London headquarters, Aluna serves clients located in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East/North Africa (MENA).
About Aluna
Aluna focuses on technology scale-up companies, providing investment banking and consulting services to help them execute high-growth strategies.
Founders Victor Rivera, Stefano Sciacca, and Federico Suarez bring a wealth of capital markets experience to their clients. At premier organizations including Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Santander, they managed global teams and led transactions in equities, fixed income, and foreign exchange (FX) in addition to global cash management and corporate and investment banking. Their deep knowledge includes private market expertise gained through structuring venture capital investment funds, venture capital investing, and M&A transactions.
The Aluna difference
The Aluna team believes scale-up companies have the right to build a well-balanced capital structure to unlock high-growth strategies. Their tailored, consultative approach focuses on the specific needs of each client in order to determine the right mix of financial solutions to power growth. From primary and secondary equity transactions to debt capital raising, venture debt, and other alternative financing solutions, Aluna helps their clients understand the benefits of different financing structures.
Aluna leverages its broad network to deliver results. The firm has relationships with more than 800 VC funds and 150 private debt funds. During 2022, they supported nearly 30 companies and completed more than 10 transactions.
Aluna and Percent: a winning combination
Aluna has partnered with Percent to provide faster financing solutions to scale-ups at a lower cost of capital. In its first transaction, Aluna brings an opportunity to invest in Carryt, a Colombia-based technology company providing logistics and last-mile delivery services. This opportunity is being offered exclusively to Percent investors via a senior term loan underwritten by Aluna Partners in conjunction with Percent.
The Aluna outlook for 2023
At a macro level, Aluna believes that inflation and central bank behavior will remain core to start-up financing activity in 2023. They expect that discussions about growth will become increasingly relevant since disparities between countries could accentuate financial instability and potentially increase local costs of funding.
In the United States, which may be past peak inflation, private debt is expected to be the asset class with the potential to generate the highest return for investors during 2023. Appetite for asset-based financing is expected to strengthen in 2023, with a particularly strong outlook for fintechs that concentrate in loan origination (such as mortgage lending, auto lending, and SME financing). Aluna believes these firms have the best chance to access capital at lower costs. However, startups that are not loan originators will also be attractive to investors when they have good unit economics and a defined path to profitability. Aluna expects to see strong appetite for venture debt and the working capital facilities necessary for these firms’ capital structures throughout the year.