Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) has won the ‘Venture Capital Deal of the Year’ award in the prestigious Private Equity Awards 2008 for the $275 million sale of oilfield technology company MTEM to Petroleum Geo-Services.

SEP beat competition from Index Ventures and YFM Venture to clinch the award, making it a hat trick for SEP which has now won three major industry awards in the last month.

In March SEP was named Venture Capital Firm of the Year in the UK Technology Innovation and Growth Awards and it also won Technology Venture Exit of the Year for the MTEM exit.

Judges at the Private Equity Awards 2008 commented on the MTEM deal: “ This investment required true hands on investing. It is one of the best venture deals we have seen in a long time and SEP was committed from the start.”

MTEM was formed at the end of 2004 as a spinout from Edinburgh University. SEP invested £3.5 million alongside two Norwegian investors and helped the company grow in less than three years from four people in a lab to a company with 67 employees led by Chief Executive Leon Walker.

MTEM developed leading-edge electro-magnetic survey technology which can save the energy sector billions of pounds by detecting oil and gas reservoirs more efficiently. When MTEM was sold in June 2007, SEP achieved a return of more than nine times its original investment.

Calum Paterson, Managing Partner of SEP said: “This award recognises the strengths of our investment team and their ability to consistently identify and develop world-class companies. It also reflects the high calibre of entrepreneurs that we work with.”

Paterson added: “This is an exciting time for the venture capital market in Europe. We are seeing some excellent new investment opportunities, we’ve completed eight new deals in the last six months and we see strong opportunities for exits.”