European venture capital firm DFJ Esprit has announced the sale of TLC, supplier of Customer Relationship Management, call centre and telemarketing solutions – ts fourth exit so far in 2011.

This success follows the sales of Lovefilm, and The Cloud earlier this year, continuing a series of seven exits over the past twelve months totalling USD1.2 billion in enterprise value. The total of VC backed M&A over the period according to Venturesource is USD2.5bn in enterprise value (excluding Biopharmaceutical exits).
 
TLC has been sold to Serco plc for GBP55.9m, representing a 5x return on DFJ Esprit’s investment.

Paul Murray, Partner, DFJ Esprit says: “TLC is an award winning company and has delivered terrific growth over the last few years. We’re delighted with this exit, it’s a great result for DFJ Esprit and the other shareholders, and allows the TLC team to take this platform to another level within Serco.”
 
Simon Cook (pictured), CEO, DFJ Esprit, adds: “We have begun the year with a bang. While the global economy has been challenging, our series of exits over the past year shows there is still a strong exit route for venture backed companies. The US VC exit market has had a fantastic rebound in the last 12 months and we are starting to see that here in Europe”.