ICON Corporate Finance hires mobility specialist Sumeet Pillai
Tech-focussed investment bank ICON Corporate Finance has hired mobility sector expert, Sumeet Pillai. With a background in VC, investment banking and corporate development, Sumeet has partnered with companies and investors throughout the growth lifecycle: from Series A, and mid-to-late-stage growth, to publicly listed companies.
Sumeet brings a range of complementary skills to the ICON team through his experience across the buy side and sell side – including in Equity Capital Markets at Lloyds Banking Group, corporate development at Tata Capital Europe; and VC at Earlsfield Capital and New End Associates.
At ICON, he will focus on building the firm’s Mobility practice. Having covered the automotive and mobility sectors over the past decade, Sumeet will support strategics and investors across the wider ecosystem – including shared mobility, batteries & charging, vehicle systems & software, and digital data services. His recent deals in the sector include a Series B for Drover – the UK’s largest car sharing platform – followed by its sale to NYSE-listed Cazoo, and a growth equity financing round for one of the largest car-sharing businesses in DACH. This builds on ICON’s previous deals in the sector, including a financing round for The Mobility House, a provider of innovative vehicle charging infrastructure solutions and services, backed by Mitsui and Daimler; and the sale of Paragon Software Systems, a leading provider of transportation management software solutions, to US based Aptean.
Commenting on Sumeet’s appointment, Alan Bristow, CEO of ICON, said: “We saw that 2021 was the breakout year for the European mobility sector with c.$14bn invested by VCs, up nearly 3x compared to 2020. We believe it will become a cornerstone within the technology landscape as new technologies enable ever-changing usage patterns around electric vehicles, micro mobility, and autonomous vehicles, making it a significant growth sector for us.”
Sumeet adds: “mobility is at an exciting juncture: the first 10 years of the current mobility revolution focused on bringing transportation online. The next decade, however, will be dedicated to the seamless integration of the various modes of urban transportation and logistics driven by the explosion of data, widespread use of machine learning and data analytics, and the shift towards electric vehicles.”
The firm’s mobility coverage will also leverage on ICON’s existing expertise in the fintech space, particularly within insurtech. Sumeet continued: “With insurance underwriting evolving to capitalise on new shared mobility models as well as the growing amount of in-vehicle data, this is a space that will rapidly evolve, with significant M&A and financing activity in the coming years.”.
Sumeet is a CFA Charter holder and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
