Nazca Capital picks up immersive experience operator; Camden’s Triumph acquires Spanish culinary institute
Good morning, Nina Lindholm here with the Europe Wire from the London newsroom.
Many Europeans have either started their summer vacations or are about to do so in August. Spain is the top destination among holidaymakers from the UK, and that’s also where this Friday Wire focuses today. First up, we look at Nazca Capital’s acquisition of a majority stake in Madrid Artes Digitales, a creator, producer, licensor and operator of immersive cultural experiences.
We then move closer to the coast, as Camden Partners-backed Triumph Higher Education has acquired Culinary Institute of Barcelona, a private international culinary school in Spain.
Next, we head to Italy, where Investindustrial has agreed to invest in PA Aromatics, a developer and manufacturer of flavors and fragrances for the food, beverage, confectionery, animal feed, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and personal care industries.
We’ll finish with They Said It, where I’ll highlight a star quote from a PE Hub story this week.
Interactive immersion
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey hit theaters last weekend, debuting with $263.8 million in global ticket sales – his biggest opening weekend ever. While the source material is hardly new, this fresh take will bring more eyes to it.
The target of our first deal might be based in Spain, but the company is betting on the increased popularity of the Greek epic. Nazca Capital, through its Nazca Opportunities strategy, has completed an acquisition of a majority stake in Madrid Artes Digitales (MAD), a creator, producer, licensor and operator of immersive cultural experiences.
In September, MAD will premiere La Odisea (The Odyssey: The Immersive Journey) at Matadero Madrid. Nazca will support MAD in accelerating the development of new proprietary productions, expanding its international licensing network and selectively adding new permanent venues.
Stardust International and Inmersivas Digitales will remain significant minority shareholders, MAD’s existing management team will continue to lead the business, and Layers of Reality will continue to collaborate with MAD as an international licensing partner.
Founded in 2021, MAD creates, produces and distributes experiences that combine 360-degree projection mapping, virtual reality, location-based virtual reality, augmented reality, holographic content, scenic installations and interactive digital technologies. Its proprietary productions – Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Legend of the Titanic and Cleopatra: The Immersive Exhibition – have sold more than five million tickets worldwide and received multiple Telly and Eventex Awards, as well as National Geographic Spain’s Best Historical Exhibition Award.
Culinary culture
Our next stop in Spain is Barcelona. Camden Partners-backed Triumph Higher Education has acquired Culinary Institute of Barcelona, a private international culinary school.
The acquisition brings CIB into Triumph’s culinary education portfolio alongside Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts and Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts in Vancouver, strengthening Triumph’s global network of career-focused culinary institutions.
Triumph’s network will serve more than 8,000 students annually, with an alumni network of more than 25,000 and more than 150 faculty and chef instructors across North America and Europe.
CIB will continue operating from its Barcelona campus.
Camden made a growth investment in Triumph in 2014.
PE Hub has noted plenty of deal activity in Spain and Iberia. Keep an eye out for an upcoming story exploring key trends in the region.
Full flavor
Let’s leave Spain behind but stick roughly to the same latitude. Investindustrial has agreed to invest in PA Aromatics, an Italian developer and manufacturer of flavors and fragrances for the food, beverage, confectionery, animal feed, pharmaceutical, cosmetics and personal care industries.
Founded in 1984 by the Montagna family and headquartered in Carbonara al Ticino, PA Aromatics serves a broad customer base of multinational groups and Italian operators through a portfolio of more than 8,000 products.
In recent years, PA Aromatics has grown organically and through strategic acquisitions, generating approximately €50 million in revenue in 2025, according to a press statement. The group operates a production platform comprising four plants: three in Italy and one in Brazil.
The investment is intended to accelerate the company’s growth in Italy and internationally, further strengthening its managerial and manufacturing platform and supporting its expansion organically and through strategic M&A, the statement added.
They Said It
Before I sign off, let’s take a look at They Said It, where I highlight my favourite quotes from PE Hub stories from the past week.
My colleague Iris Dorbian delved into IVEST and Cloverlay’s early exit from entertainment franchise Care Bears. I was intrigued by a quote where Cloverlay’s Jeffrey Collins explained that the brand’s iconic status wasn’t quite enough on its own:
“It wasn’t necessarily something your eight-year-old pulled up on YouTube but something that endures, that’s interesting and doesn’t attract eyeballs, but in the right hands, you could do interesting things with that ‘boring old IP.’ That’s exactly what happened with Care Bears.” – Jeffrey Collins, managing partner, Cloverlay
That’s all from me. John R Fischer will be with you later today with the US edition, and I’ll be back in the Europe chair on Monday.
Cheers,
Nina
