Profile

Bregal Milestone (“Milestone”), founded in 2018 and based in London, UK, partners with fast-growing, mission-critical software businesses across Europe. The firm’s team of experts provides strategic and operational support, underpinned by a €30–€150 million investment and a focus on three key pillars: (i) accelerated growth via data and AI capabilities to uncover market and competitive opportunities, (ii) flexible structuring across both majority and substantial minority investments, and (iii) operational excellence driven by data science and the work of its in-house value creation team, Milestone Performance Partners.

Awards

2025 Top Private Equity Firms, Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors, Top Growth Equity Firms

2024 Top Growth Equity Firms, Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors, Top Software Investors

2023 Top Growth Equity Firms

Key People

Milestone was established in 2018 by Jan Bruennler, Philippe Lautenberg and Cyrus Shey, who collectively have over 60 years of relevant experience and continue to run Milestone today as Managing Partners. The Managing Partners have built complementary skills and market insight through more than 17 years of investing and collaborating together prior to founding Milestone. 

Jan Bruennler, Managing Partner

Mr. Bruennler is a Managing Partner of Milestone and a member of the Firm’s IC. Prior to founding Milestone, Mr. Bruennler was a Partner at Makuria Investment Management, where he led investments in the equity and debt of European companies with a focus on growth companies and complex situations. Before his time at Makuria, Mr. Bruennler originated and invested in European equity and debt investments at Sculptor Capital (formerly known as Och-Ziff Capital Management). Mr. Bruennler began his career in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking Division in London, where he executed complex M&A and leveraged finance transactions across Europe.

Philippe Lautenberg, Managing Partner

Mr. Lautenberg is a Managing Partner of Milestone and a member of the Firm’s IC. Prior to founding Milestone, Mr. Lautenberg was a co-founder and Head of the European middle market lending business at Credit Suisse, investing in European growth companies using the firm’s proprietary capital. Before setting up this business, Mr. Lautenberg was a senior member of Credit Suisse’s European Special Situations Group. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lautenberg co-founded and ran Circle Capital Partners, a renewable energy investment firm. Philippe began his career in investment banking at ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank.

Cyrus Shey, Managing Partner

Mr. Shey is a Managing Partner of Milestone and a member of the Firm’s IC. Prior to founding Milestone, Mr. Shey was a co-founder and Head of the European middle market lending business at Credit Suisse, investing private capital in European growth companies using the firm’s proprietary capital. Before setting up this business, Mr. Shey held various senior positions at Goldman Sachs where he originated, arranged and invested in leveraged buyouts and growth capital financings. Mr. Shey began his career as a strategy consultant at Accenture in London.

Rob Hetherington, Operating Partner & Head of Milestone Performance Partners

Mr. Hetherington leads MPP, Milestone’s in-house value creation team. He has over 25 years’ experience in international leadership roles in some of the foremost software and services businesses in the world. He has significant experience of advising and working with C-level executives, of selling industry vertical and enterprise software, and of selling and delivering large scale, complex business and technology change programmes in a variety of industries. Immediately before joining Milestone full time, Mr. Hetherington was a Senior Vice President at Blue Prism, the market-leading and fast growing (80+ % YoY) robotics/AI software business where he led its Financial Services team (c. 60% of the firm’s revenues). Prior to this, he was a Global Vice President at SAP, the largest European software business, where he led the company’s €2 billion p.a. global Financial Services business for several years and was responsible for the activities of 2000+ professionals across software sales, marketing, services and support. He refocused the business to take advantage of new disruptive technologies (e.g. AI, Blockchain, IoT etc.) and to position SAP as an innovation leader and a key digital transformation enabler in the global Financial Services industry. Results under his tenure were the strongest on record—double digit licence growth (including 50% + cloud growth) in his final year in role. Prior to joining SAP, Mr. Hetherington had a 20-year consulting career. He was a Senior Managing Director at Accenture and Cap Gemini, and led significant consulting businesses (€300-500 million revenue p.a.) for these firms across Europe and internationally, with business management, client relationship development and client delivery responsibilities.

Ian Kwok, Partner

Ian Kwok is a Partner at Bregal Milestone. He brings significant operating and technology sector experience to management teams. Prior to joining Bregal, Ian was a Vice President at Insight Partners, where he focused on partnering with Insight’s portfolio companies to scale effective go-to-market teams through the application of proven and repeatable best practices. Prior to Insight, Ian led Sales Strategy and Operations at ZocDoc (a healthcare startup in New York) and was also an entrepreneur, having owned and operated an automotive dealership group and successfully sold the business to Lithia Motors (NYSE: LAD) in 2014. Ian started his career at Centerview Partners executing large-cap and complex M&A transactions.

Ian received his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and his BA with honors from Pomona College. Originally from Hong Kong, Ian also speaks Cantonese and Mandarin.

Funds Raised

Milestone was formed in 2018 by Managing Partners Jan Bruennler, Philippe Lautenberg and Cyrus Shey. In 2018, Milestone successfully raised a €495 million fund which has since been fully invested. As of February 2024, the Fund has distributed 0.8x to investors making it a top quartile European Fund in terms of DPI. In 2022, Milestone went on to raise Fund II at €770m to continue executing its successful investment strategy partnering with high growth technology companies in Europe. 

Key Investments

SkySparc: Invesed September 2025
Sector: B2B Software

SkySparc is a trusted global provider of digital transformation solutions for treasury and finance organizations.

BeyondNow: Invested December 2025
Sector: B2B Software

Beyond Now is a fast-growing, cloud-native supply chain software provider for AI-enabled digital commerce.  

Ridango: Invested March 2025
Sector: B2B Software

Ridango is a global market leader in intelligent transportation software for public transport authorities, municipalities, cities, and public transport operators.

Epipoli: Exited January 2025
Sector: B2B Software

Epipoli is a leading and fast-growing provider of gift cards and customer engagement services to corporates in Italy.

M-Files: Invested August 2024
Sector: B2B Software

M-Files is a provider of an intelligent, repository-neutral platform that utilizes metadata and artificial intelligence to break down information silos and unify systems, data, and content.

Allshares: Invested March 2024
Sector: B2B Software

Allshares is a market leader for equity plan design and administration in the Nordics.

CUBE: Exited March 2024
Sector: B2B Software

CUBE is a global leader in Automated Regulatory Intelligence serving leading financial institutions.

Epassi: Exited August 2023
Sector: B2B Software

Epassi is a high-growth digital disruptor in the employee benefits and wellbeing space.

CyberSentriq: Invested December 2021
Sector: B2B Software

CyberSentriq is an integrated cybersecurity and data protection platform, leveraging solutions from two best-of-breed vendors in the MSP space.

Capital Responsibility

Bregal Milestone champions a responsible investment approach focused on creating long-term, sustainable value and is conscious of the responsibilities it has primarily towards its investors, but also towards wider stakeholders where possible. The firm believes that a “business” approach to Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) practices is generally a solid indicator of a company’s prospects for long-term, sustainable value creation. It is committed to systematically integrating responsible investing considerations across all stages of the investment lifecycle, from pre-investment activities to the post-investment holding period and exit. The firm believes that appropriate consideration of ESG can be both a financial risk mitigant and a driver of financial growth.

CEO Reviews

Pekka Rantala, CEO of ePassi

“Bregal Milestone brings a truly entrepreneurial spirit to Epassi. The Milestone team has played a significant role in helping Epassi achieve annual growth rates in excess of 40% as we continue to go from strength-to-strength reinforcing our position as the market-leading employee benefits technology platform.”

Fernando Benito, Co-founder and CEO of Paack

“Having grown at over 200% annually in recent years, we wanted to onboard a value-adding partner to retain focus and drive continued growth. We look forward to working with Milestone on further enhancing the commercialisation of our award-winning technology as well as our internationalisation.”

Paschal Naylor, CEO of Arkphire

“Bregal Milestone has been an awesome partner. We enthusiastically recommend them for entrepreneurs seeking a growth partner. The entire Bregal Milestone team were instrumental to accelerating Arkphire’s growth culminating in a highly successful exit.”