(Bloomberg) -- UBS Group AG hired former Citigroup Inc. banker Sinclair Ridley-Thomas as head of technology private placements, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Ridley-Thomas, who’s based in San Francisco, is set to join next month, reporting to Paul Crisci, global head of private markets and global co-head of technology, media and telecommunications, and Alan Felder, head of Americas private financing markets, said some of the people, all of whom asked not to be identified discussing the hiring. A UBS spokeswoman declined to comment, as did Ridley-Thomas and a Citigroup representative.

Ridley-Thomas joined Citigroup in 2020 and worked on transactions including Deep Instinct’s $100 million funding round led by BlackRock Inc., Trendyol’s $1.5 billion financing led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund 2 and Quip’s $100 million round led by Cowen Sustainable Investments, his LinkedIn profile shows. He previously worked at Royal Bank of Canada and JMP Securities LLC, and is the son of longtime Los Angeles politician Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Wall Street banks have been bolstering their private capital markets businesses in part because of the ballooning number of growth-stage companies.

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