Aureos Capital

Sev Vettivetpillai led the firm as Managing Partner from its 2001 founding through the 2012 sale to Abraaj Capital. Regional investment committees in Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, and San José held local deal authority within mandate parameters set by the London central team. The CDC Group heritage meant development finance institutions formed the anchor LP base and typically held advisory board seats.

Aureos Capital was acquired by Abraaj Capital in 2012 and ceased independent operations. The merger folded Aureos's $1.1 billion portfolio and its team into Abraaj's emerging-markets platform. The standalone Aureos brand has not actively invested since that integration, per public record.

Both. The firm managed direct SME growth equity funds — taking minority and control positions in emerging-market companies — alongside a fund-of-funds program that invested in local private equity managers across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Deployment was typically sub-$10 million per direct deal.

The portfolio concentrated in healthcare, consumer goods, light manufacturing, and financial services across emerging markets. These sectors offered SME deal flow at entry multiples below developed-market private equity, consistent with Aureos's development-finance origins.

The 2012 sale to Abraaj Capital consolidated two complementary emerging-market franchises — Aureos's SME specialist network and Abraaj's larger-scale institutional platform — at a time when DFI-backed managers faced pressure to scale. The combined entity aimed to offer global limited partners a broader emerging-markets product suite (per Financial Times, 2012).