VENTURE CAPITAL POST

Northern Ireland's Department for Communities stated that the government has committed $44 million to address the issue of homelessness. The funding will be used to provide support services for the homeless sector which Minister Paul Givan has communicated with in order to know their views.

Chevron said that its subsidiaries in Australia have entered into a non-binding Heads of Agreement with ENN LNG Trading Co. Ltd to sell liquefied natural gas to China. The delivery of LNG will be commenced in the first six-month of 2019, according to the company.

Saudi Arabia oil minister Ali al-Naimi said that stability in the oil market will be attained only through the cooperation amid major manufacturers and this would take time. Ali al-Naimi added that although the worldwide oil market has been experiencing an instability for over 12 months, he is hopeful regarding the return and future of the oil market.

California detectives are investigating a July computer theft at storied venture capital-firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a spokeswoman for the Menlo Park police said on Thursday. The theft may put Kleiner in jeopardy of losing valuable financial data and making the firm the latest in a long list of businesses that have lost sensitive information to thieves. In this case, the information was taken by physical, not electronic, means.

Metanautix has received $7 million in initial funding from Sequioa Capital, the Stanford University Endowment Fund and Shiva Shivakumar, a former VP of engineering at Google. The company plans to release its first product for general availability before the end of 2014. At present, there are half a dozen beta customers using the software, with the largest being Hewlett-Packard.

In an email addressed to the university community, Columbia University said it has hit a fundraising milestone recently when it managed to raise over $6.1 billion in funding, the second biggest by a US university to date.

The Center for Health Program Management and its funding partners which include Sierra Health Foundation, The California Endowment and The California Wellness Foundation gave a grant of $1.6 million to four counties to support the Positive Youth Justice Initiative.

The annual average return of university endowments was pegged at 11.7%, according to figures from the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute, Bloomberg reported.

New York, US-based firm Apollo Global Management LLC announced on Thursday that it had raised $17.5 billion for the Apollo Investment Fund VIII, the largest private equity fund raised since the financial crisis.

Frankfurt, Germany-based private equity firm Nordic Capital said on Friday it has raised €3.5 billion ($4.8 billion) for its eight buyout fund amid decreased volatility in Europe.

With the help of both public and private equity, the investments of Wellcome Trust was able to return 18% in the year that ended September 30, Bloomberg reported.

The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals were reported on Friday including Statoil, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, ThyssenKrupp, Mercator, Avivasa Emeklilik, Hayat Sigorta, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Telus Corp, Atrium Innovations and John Hardy

The increasing number of new hedge funds by global banks and asset managers in Asia threatened the business of smaller firms who had opened their independent firms just after the 2008 financial crisis.

Hedge funds are now entering the municipal debt market, finding a veritable gold mine in value but may provide more problems in the long run as to the temporary nature of the investments.