(Reuters) – Blackstone Group Inc, the world’s largest manager of alternative assets such as private equity and real estate, said on Friday it closed Blackstone Growth (BXG), its inaugural growth equity fund, at $4.5 billion.
Blackstone said the fund was oversubscribed, with capital commitments from family offices, entrepreneurs, endowments, strategic institutional investors, pension funds and high-net-worth individuals.
BXG’s investments include online dating company Bumble Inc and vegan food and drink products maker Oatly, which counts Oprah Winfrey and rapper Jay-Z among its prominent backers, Blackstone said.
Large buyout firms are ramping up and preparing to launch new funds to invest in various types of assets. BXG has focused its investments on the financial services, enterprise and consumer technologies, healthcare and consumer sectors.
Blackstone is also seeking to raise $4 billion for a fund to invest in various asset classes, Reuters reported earlier this month citing people familiar with the matter.
Dubbed Blackstone Tactical Opportunities Fund IV, it will have a mandate to invest in assets that typically fall outside the scope of Blackstone’s other funds, from timber and mines to oil tankers and satellites.
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
