By Karen Peattie

PRIVATE equity-focused Souter Investments has partnered with Averna Capital to complete an investment in SI-UK, an international student recruitment company for UK higher education institutions, via Averna Investco III.

A leader in student placement to the UK market, SI-UK works with universities and higher education institutions to achieve their international student recruitment goals.

SI-UK co-founder and managing director Dwayne Gallagher said: “SI-UK started in 2006 with offices in Tokyo and Osaka followed by London.

"Over the last 16 years, SI-UK has shown stellar growth and expanded across all corners of the world. We have sales and marketing teams in nine of the UK’s top 10 student source countries.

“We believe there is significant potential to grow further.”

Orion Judge, co-founder and global director, added: “This investment ensures SI-UK will reach our target of 100,000 student placements per year over the coming five years.”

SI-UK’s founders remain significant shareholders and will continue to lead the company. The terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.

John Berthinussen, managing director at family investment firm Souter Investments, added: “It is great to be able to partner again with Averna Capital and invest in another exciting, fast-growing and market-leading international business."

He described Mr Gallagher and Mr Judge as "two fantastic founder entrepreneurs”.

SI-UK is Souter Investments' second investment with Averna, following the acquisition of voluntary carbon market specialists Climate Care and Natural Capital Partners, which merged to form Climate Impact Partners.

In addition to SI-UK and Climate Impact Partners, Souter has also completed recent investments alongside Axiom Equity in Akixi, the cloud-based call analytics SaaS provider.