Rabo Investments

Rabo Investments

Rabo Investments was formed in 1996 when Rabobank spun out its first private equity activities into Gilde Buy Out Partners — now known as Rivean Capital, where the bank remains anchor investor — and consolidated its equity investing under one mandate. The firm traces its earliest deployment to the 1990s, when Rabobank began offering private equity to mid-sized Dutch companies. Today, its mandate sits at EUR 3.2bn (2022 extension), making it one of the largest corporate investment programs in European food and agriculture. Deployment spans four teams — Private Equity, Fund & Co-Investments, Corporate Venturing, and Ventures — that cover early-stage, growth phase, and mature companies across Europe and North America. The Private Equity team targets Dutch mid-market companies, while the Ventures group backs startups and scale-ups in food, agri, and energy transition technologies. The Fund & Co-Investments arm commits to international food and agriculture funds and makes direct co-investments alongside GPs. The Corporate Venturing team, led by Martijn Scholtes, invests proprietary balance-sheet capital into Series A and B fintech and agtech companies with strategic relevance to Rabobank. Portfolio and partner names confirmed by the firm include SurePay, a payment verification platform backed alongside Carlyle Group; Performativ, a wealth management infrastructure company co-invested with Deutsche Börse; and anchor commitments to venture funds including Balderton, HV Capital, and Speedinvest. Headquartered in Utrecht, the group employs investment professionals across its four teams and maintains additional operating assets including BPD (Bouwfonds Property Development), a Dutch residential mortgage portfolio, and Rabo Green Bank. Francis Quint sits on the board of the NVP (Dutch Venture Capital Association), and Rabo Investments participates in the Institutional Limited Partners Association through its fund-of-funds activity. In March 2024, the firm appointed Myrthe to oversee the Fund & Co-Investments team, and in 2025, Willem Beekman joined the Private Equity team as Director of Business Development, signaling continued team expansion. Structurally, Rabo Investments is unusual among corporate investors: it runs both a proprietary venture arm and a third-party fund investment program that competes for LP slots with institutional allocators. This dual posture — Rabobank's balance sheet as a strategic venture LP while co-investing directly alongside those same funds — gives its deal teams information flow that neither a pure fund-of-funds nor a standalone CVC typically sees.