Ares Capital Corporation announced that its investment adviser, Ares Capital Management LLC, has added a team of eight venture finance professionals formerly with BlueCrest Capital Finance GP, LLC. The group is led by Bill DeMars, an experienced corporate lending professional with 33 years of experience, including 14 years in venture finance, and includes five other senior professionals. The team has executed more than 500 venture finance transactions with total commitments in excess of $1.3 billion.

The team will continue to service the portfolio company financing needs of venture capital firms by providing senior secured debt financing in such sectors as communications, information technology, semiconductors, hardware and software, electronics, clean and alternative energy and life sciences.

“We are delighted to welcome Bill and his team of experienced investment professionals to Ares,” said Michael Arougheti, president of Ares Capital. “They bring deep industry and transactional knowledge, close relationships and a demonstrated long term investment track record in venture finance dating back to 1998. The addition of this team will help us continue to pursue our ongoing strategy of exploiting growth opportunities within attractive sectors that provide strong risk adjusted returns in private debt.”

“Ares represents an excellent cultural and strategic fit for our group,” said DeMars, managing director within the Ares Private Debt Group. “We are looking forward to being an integral part of the organization and executing upon the growing market opportunity with our time-tested business model.”

Ares Capital is a specialty finance company that provides one-stop financing solutions to U.S. middle-market companies and private equity sponsors.