AVCJ Private Equity & Venture Forum Japan 2023
The premier private equity & venture forum in Japan
The Conrad, Tokyo and online
Lead Sponsors
Goldman Sachs
https://www.goldmansachs.com/Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s leading investors in alternative investments. With over 30 years of experience, we invest in the full spectrum of alternatives, including private equity, growth equity, credit, real estate, infrastructure, ESG, and absolute-return strategies. Our clients access these solutions through our direct proprietary strategies, customized strategic partnerships, and open-architecture programs.
Our alternative investment teams represent over 1,300 professionals, across 31 offices around the world. We leverage the depth and breadth of global relationships across Goldman Sachs to identify investment opportunities, drawing on our firm-wide capital market insights, industry research, and risk management platforms. We extend these capabilities to the world’s leading pension plans, sovereign wealth funds, governments, financial institutions, endowments, foundations, family offices and individuals, for which we invest or advise on over $300 billion of alternative investments.
We would be pleased to discuss your alternative investments with you. Please contact us at GS-Alternatives@gs.com
NSSK
http://www.nsskjapan.com/enNippon Sangyo Suishin Kiko Ltd. (NSSK) is an investment firm established in 2014 and a leader in Japan’ s middle market for buyout transactions.
NSSK believes that implementing an Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) policy is socially responsible and can also improve the returns in our investment portfolio. Since the establishment of NSSK, we have embedded the ESG principles in our investment process.
In addition to its flagship funds, NSSK currently manages a total of five investment funds dedicated to impact investing in regional markets in Japan. Major ESG highlights for our portfolio companies include a 12% increase in the number of jobs, 40% of CEO/COOs being Women or Minorities, 78% of our total employee base of over 5,000 being Women, and 49% of managerial positions being held by Women. NSSK is a UN PRI Signatory and the first Japan based GP to become a signatory of the Operating Principles for Impact Management. Please visit www.nsskjapan.com to read about the successful and exciting ESG outcomes and initiatives driven by NSSK’s employees as highlighted in our ESG Annual Report.
Asia Series Sponsor
KPMG Japan
https://www.kpmg.com/jpKPMG is a leading provider of Audit, Tax and Advisory services to private equity worldwide.
Our Private Equity group brings together our top transaction advisory, deal origination, technology, value creation, and tax professionals to support our clients with global best practices and local expertise in every situation. We combine industry specialization with a deep understanding of the requirements of private equity as we help our clients grow portfolio value and achieve outstanding returns over the entire investment cycle.
We help our clients execute deals with greater insight, confidence, speed, and decision-making quality. Post investment, we help private equity funds and their portfolio companies identify and grow value in a diverse range of areas such as aligning IT strategy with the business model, turning ESG into a competitive advantage, optimizing operations to unlock cash and grow earnings, digitally empowering the business with new technologies, and many others. Depending on the exit route, we also help prepare companies for IPO or manage the sale process. In addition, we help private equity and their portfolios achieve effective tax compliance and manage tax risks while controlling costs and enhancing returns.
KPMG – Dedicated to Private Equity. Dedicated to your success.
Knowledge Partner
Bain & Company
https://www.bain.comWe're a global consultancy that helps the world’s most ambitious change makers define the future.
Across 65 cities in 40 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes.
Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today’s urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment.
We earned a platinum rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, putting us in the top 1% of all companies.
Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry.
Co-Sponsors
Adams Street Partners
http://www.adamsstreetpartners.comAdams Street Partners is a global private markets investment manager with investments in more than thirty countries across five continents. Adams Street’s 90+ investment professionals focus on five strategies: primary fund partnerships, secondary transactions, co-investments, direct growth equity company investments, and private credit deals. Adams Street strives to generate actionable investment insights across market cycles by drawing on 50 years of private markets experience, proprietary intelligence, and trusted relationships. The firm is 100% employee-owned and has $51 billion in assets under management. Adams Street maintains a worldwide presence with offices in Austin, Beijing, Boston, Chicago, London, Menlo Park, Munich, New York, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo.
Advantage Partners
http://www.advantagepartners.com/en/Advantage Partners was founded by Richard Folsom and Taisuke Sasanuma in 1997 and is a leading provider of services to private equity and similar funds focused on the Japanese and Asian markets. Advantage Partners has been providing services to funds since 1997, when the firm established the first buyout fund in Japan. Funds served by Advantage Partners have invested in more than 120 companies representing total invested capital of over JPY400 billion across a wide range of industries and sectors. Advantage Partners has offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai, and has plans to open an office in Mumbai later this year.
Ares Management Corporation Japan
http://www.aresmgmt.comAres Management Corporation (NYSE: ARES) is a leading global alternative investment manager offering clients complementary primary and secondary investment solutions across the credit, private equity, real estate and infrastructure asset classes. We seek to provide flexible capital to support businesses and create value for our stakeholders and within our communities. By collaborating across our investment groups, we aim to generate consistent and attractive investment returns throughout market cycles. As of March 31, 2023, Ares Management Corporation's global platform had approximately $360 billion of assets under management, with more than 2,600 employees operating across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East.
For more information, please visit www.aresmgmt.com or contact JapanRMs@aresmgmt.com.
Bain Capital
http://www.baincapital.com/Bain Capital, LP is one of the world’s leading private investment firms with approximately $185 billion of assets under management that creates lasting impact for our investors, teams, businesses, and the communities in which we live. Since our founding in 1984, we’ve applied our insight and experience to organically expand into several asset classes including private equity, credit, public equity, venture capital and real estate. We leverage our shared platform to capture cross-asset class opportunities in strategic areas of focus. With offices on four continents, our global team aligns our interests with those of our investors for lasting impact.
CVC
https://www.cvc.com/CVC Capital
CVC is a leading private equity and investment advisory firm with a network of 25 offices throughout Europe, Asia and the US, with approximately €137 billion of assets under management. CVC has six complementary strategies across private equity, secondaries and credit, for which we have secured commitments in excess of €165 billion from some of the world's leading institutional investors across its private equity and credit strategies. Funds managed or advised by CVC are invested in over 100 companies worldwide, which have combined annual sales of approximately €100 billion and employ more than 550,000 people. For further information about CVC please visit: www.cvc.com. Follow us on LinkedIn.
CVC Asia
CVC has one of the largest and longest-established pan-regional office networks of any private equity business in Asia and has been active in the region since 1999. CVC's Asia private equity strategy is focused on control, co-control and structured minority investments in high quality businesses in core consumer and services sectors across Asia. Typical enterprise values are between $250 million and $1.5 billion. For further information about CVC’s Asia Pacific funds please visit: www.cvc.com/private-equity/asia.
EQT
https://eqtgroup.comEQT is a purpose-driven global investment organization focused on active ownership strategies. With a Nordic heritage and a global mindset, EQT has a track record of almost three decades of delivering consistent and attractive returns across multiple geographies, sectors and strategies. Uniquely, EQT is the only large private markets firm in the world with investment strategies covering all phases of a business’ development, from start-up to maturity. EQT today has more than EUR 112 billion in assets under management including BPEA EQT across 45+ active funds within three business segments – Private Capital, BPEA EQT and Real Assets.
With its roots in the Wallenberg family’s entrepreneurial mindset and philosophy of long-term ownership, EQT is guided by a set of strong values and a distinct corporate culture. EQT manages and advises funds and vehicles that invest across the world with the mission to future-proof companies, generate attractive returns and make a positive impact with everything EQT does.
In October 2022 EQT combined with BPEA Asia to create BPEA EQT combines the private equity teams from Baring Private Equity Asia (BPEA) and EQT Asia, creating a comprehensive Asian private equity presence with local teams in eight cities across the region, a 25-year heritage, and more than USD 25 billion of capital deployed since inception.
Private Capital comprises six business lines: EQT Private Equity, EQT Future, EQT Ventures, EQT Life Sciences, EQT Growth and EQT Public Value. The Private Capital segment has grown rapidly and has EUR 68.2 billion in assets under management as of December 2022.
Real Assets – The Real Assets’ business segment comprises three business lines: EQT Infrastructure, EQT Active Core Infrastructure and EQT Exeter. The Real Asset segment has EUR 44.2 billion in assets under management as of December 2022.
Globis Capital Partners
http://www.globiscapital.co.jp/enGlobis Capital Partners is one of Japan's leading independent venture capital firm that primarily invests in Japanese startups from early stage to pre-IPO stage. Globis has managed seven funds totaling over JPY 180 billion, including latest Globis VII (final closed in March 2023 at JPY 72.7billion). All closed funds were ranked in the top quartile in global VC benchmarks in their respective vintage years, and it has multiple unicorn and unicorn potential startups in its current portfolio. About 90% of LPs are institutional investors both from and outside of Japan.
Globis almost always leads rounds and provides hands-on management support to its portfolio companies through board participation by its capitalists as well as tactical support by its value-add team GCP X. In addition, in April 2023 Globis opened a new office in San Francisco to strengthen support for the global expansion of its portfolio companies.
With its unique combination of western style investment expertise obtained through a joint venture with Apax Partners and Japan-local business expertise through Globis Group, which runs No.1 MBA program in Japan, Globis continues to lead the VC market in Japan.
GroveStreet
https://www.grovestreet.comGroveStreet's sole business is to build customized private equity portfolios of lower midmarket buyout, venture capital, and co-investment exposures for large, sophisticated institutional investors. GroveStreet specializes in constructing and managing separate accounts with flexible, custom mandates that support our investors’ goals. We are performance driven, dedicated to expert reporting and knowledge transfer, and believe in highly aligned partnerships with our investors. The investment process is highly engaged and transparent. Our investors leverage GroveStreet’s deep networks, decades of experience, and robust technology, accounting, and reporting infrastructure.
Since our founding in 1998, GroveStreet has been entrusted with over $9 billion of commitments, has distributed $11 billion to investors, and currently oversees over $7 billion in assets under management for 14 investors across 41 separate account mandates. We serve a mix of pensions, insurance companies, and other types of institutional investors around the globe, including with two significant asset owners in Japan.
HarbourVest
https://www.harbourvest.comHarbourVest is an independent, global private markets firm with 40 years of experience and more than $125 billion assets under management as of December 31, 2023. Our interwoven platform provides clients access to global primary funds, secondary transactions, direct co-investments, real assets and infrastructure, and private credit.
iGlobe Partners
https://www.iglobepartners.comFounded in 1999, iGlobe Partners is a premier venture capital fund manager investing in early-stage technology startups in the areas of Smart Cities, Fintech, Healthtech and Biotech. First established in Silicon Valley and headquartered in Singapore today, the firm has an extensive global network and a strong track record of enabling startups to scale game-changing innovations across geographies. The team has managed funds exceeding US$400 million and has continually delivered top-quartile fund performance to investors, giving rise to multiple unicorns and successful exits including Unity Software (NYSE: U), Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ: TWST), ACSL (TYO: 6232), Matterport (NASDAQ: MTTR), Hippo Holdings (NYSE: HIPO), Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA) and NerdWallet (NASDAQ: NRDS).
J-STAR
http://www.j-star.co.jp/en/J-STAR is a private equity investment company that provides solution capitals to mid-sized Japanese companies through our investment. Founded in 2006, J-STAR has served funds managing and advising over JPY 100bn across 4 vintages, consistently producing top class performance.
We are a group of over 20 experienced, local investment professionals who have abundant experience in the private equity investment since the early stage of the Japanese buyout market. Targets investment opportunities in small to mid-sized Japanese companies with established business models that are unique, established brands and / or leading positions in their market niches that need capital via creative solution.
J-STAR strives for maximization of the business values while communicating with the management teams, shareholders including founding owners, business partners, banks, etc.
L Catterton
https://www.lcatterton.comL Catterton is a market-leading consumer-focused investment firm, managing approximately $33 billion of equity capital across three multi-product platforms: private equity, credit, and real estate. Leveraging deep category insight, operational excellence, and a broad network of strategic relationships, L Catterton's team of more than 200 investment and operating professionals across 17 offices partners with management teams to drive differentiated value creation across its portfolio. Founded in 1989, the firm has made over 250 investments in some of the world's most iconic consumer brands.
Lexington Partners
http://www.lexingtonpartners.comLexington Partners is a leading global alternative investment manager primarily involved in providing liquidity solutions to owners of private equity and other alternative investments and in making co-investments alongside leading private equity sponsors. Lexington Partners is one of the largest managers of secondary acquisition and co-investment funds with $55 billion in committed capital since inception. Lexington has acquired over 3,900 secondary and co-investment interests through more than 1,000 transactions with a total value in excess of $69 billion, including $17 billion of syndications. Lexington also invests in private investment funds during their initial formation and has committed to more than 550 new funds in the U.S., Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. Lexington has offices strategically located in major centers for private equity and alternative investing - New York, Boston, Menlo Park, London, Hong Kong, Santiago, São Paulo and Luxembourg.
Orchestra Private Equity
https://orchestraprivateequity.comOrchestra Private Equity (“Orchestra” or “OPE”) is a cross-border General Partner based in East Asia, which aims to acquire local companies at the smaller end of the middle market (“SEMM”) and build them into ‘Global Champions’.
Orchestra combines a long-term perspective on growth based on intrinsic value of the business, and applies relevant knowledge and experiences required to create equity value.
Orchestra Private Equity works with portfolio company management teams to make businesses more valuable through organic growth, geographic expansion, institutionalizing businesses by developing a strong executive bench, and add-on acquisitions domestically and globally.
Orchestra was established in 2014 and headquartered in Singapore with offices in Tokyo and Seoul. OPE targets buyout investments in Japanese and Korean “SEMM” companies.
OPE was founded by 2 Partners, Jay Kim and Hiro Wakashita, who started working together in 2007 as starting members of an Asia regional buyout fund of a prominent global GP.
The 2 Partners each have 16 years of the SEMM buyout experience and have collectively sourced more than 1,000 buyout deals in Japan and Korea.
To date, OPE has been operating on a pledged fund basis with total investment size at USD 271M AUM. The team has made 6 platform acquisitions and 9 add-on acquisitions; and 1 platform exit and 2 subsidiary exits.
All Orchestra members are Japan, Korea, and Singapore-native, multicultural-talent with English fluency. Members work under a firm-wide matrix structure and are fluidly assigned to cross-border projects.
Schroders Capital
https://www.schroderscapital.comSchroders Capital
Schroders Capital provides investors with access to a broad range of private asset investment opportunities, portfolio building blocks and customised private asset strategies. Its team focuses on delivering best-in-class, risk-adjusted returns and executing investments through a combination of direct investment capabilities and broader solutions in all private market asset classes, through comingled funds and customised private asset mandates.
The team aims to achieve sustainable returns through a rigorous approach and in alignment with a culture characterised by performance, collaboration and integrity.
With $90.6 billion (£75.3 billion; €84.8 billion)* assets under management, Schroders Capital offers a diversified range of investment strategies, including real estate, private equity, secondaries, venture capital, infrastructure, securitised products and asset-based finance, private debt, insurance-linked securities and BlueOrchard (Impact Specialists).
*Assets under management as at 31 December 2022 (including non-fee earning dry powder and in-house cross holdings)
For more information, visit us at www.SchrodersCapital.com.
Schroders plc
Founded in 1804, Schroders is one of Europe’s largest independent investment management firms by assets under management. As at 31 December 2022, assets under management were £737.5 billion. The founding family remain a core shareholder, holding approximately 44% of the firm’s shares. Schroders has continued to deliver strong financial results. It has a market capitalisation of circa £7 billion and employs over 6,000 people across 38 locations.
Schroders has benefited from the most diverse business model of any UK asset manager by geography, by asset class and by client type. Schroders offers innovative products and solutions across their five business areas of solutions; institutional; mutual funds; private assets & alternatives; and wealth management. Clients include insurance companies, pension schemes, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations. They also manage assets for end clients as part of their relationships with distributors, financial advisers and online platforms. Schroders’ Wealth Management offering reflects their strategic ambition to provide wealth management and financial planning services to clients across the wealth spectrum.
Schroders’ strategic aims are to grow their asset management business, build closer relationships with end clients and expand their private assets and alternatives business. Schroders’ purpose is to provide excellent investment performance to clients through active management. The business channels capital into sustainable and durable businesses to accelerate positive change in the world. Schroders’ business philosophy is based on the belief that if we deliver for clients, we deliver for Shareholders and other stakeholders.
For more information, visit us at www.Schroders.com.
The Longreach Group
http://www.longreachgroup.comThe Longreach Group is an established independent private equity firm with offices in Hong Kong and Tokyo. The firm focuses on Japan and related Greater China control buyouts in the mature industrial and technology, consumer, business services and financial services sectors. The firm manages three Funds which have accumulated approximately US$2.1 billion of committed limited partner and co-investment capital and has a strong track record of portfolio company value creation and realizations.
Longreach currently has 14 investment professionals located in Tokyo and Hong Kong. The firm also enjoys the support of prominent and highly committed Advisors located in Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, New York, London and San Francisco.
TopTier Capital Partners
https://ttcp.comTop Tier Capital Partners, LLC (“Top Tier”) is a dedicated venture capital asset manager with a 23-year history based in Silicon Valley making primary commitments, secondary investments, co-investments, direct investments across almost US$8 billion in AUM. We have venture investment programs from a global base of institutional investors, including pension funds, insurance companies, foundations, endowments, and family offices.
Having partnered and supported some of the world’s most access-constrained, best-performing venture capital managers for over two decades, we believe Top Tier’s proprietary database, relationships, information advantage, experience, insights, unique value add provide compelling venture exposure for its investors.
Our founder started investing in funds on behalf of Top Tier’s predecessor firm in 1999 and began purchasing venture capital fund secondaries in 2001. We formalized our velocity strategy in 2010, which involves the inclusion of mature secondaries and co-investments in the portfolio to mitigate the J-curve and seek earlier liquidity.
Top Tier is an SEC-registered investment adviser headquartered in San Francisco, with additional offices in Boston and London. Registration as an investment adviser does not imply a level of skill or training.
Weru
https://www.weruinvest.com/WERU Investment is the first university-fueled asset management company in Japan. Our goal is to drive innovation and corporate growth through the capital market. We hold a discretionary investment management license in Japan and manage VC, PE, equity, and credit funds catering to our clients’ needs.
In our venture capital investment, we invest in global seed and early stage technology startups, investing in innovation and new businesses not only in Japan but around the world. In particular, we build original hypotheses from insights garnered through abductive research of industry and technology trends, taking a long-term perspective in investment and support of seed and early stage startups to grow as born-global companies.
Exhibitor
BMS
https://www.bmsgroup.comBMS is a dynamic, independent, global broker established in 1980, delivering specialist insurance, reinsurance, and capital markets advisory services.
We are a global brand with offices located across the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, Europe and Asia with both a strong local focus and understanding of market needs.
Our teams are respected globally for their specialist market knowledge, intelligent analysis and insight.
Our people strive to be ‘the best in class’ and with an innovative approach and their entrepreneurial thinking our clients truly benefit from better solutions to policy development and placement.
Being independent makes a key difference to our clients, giving our brokers the freedom to deliver the best solutions, tailored to meet their business needs. Coupled with our collaborative team approach, single platform worldwide and renowned personal service, we are the independent broker of choice.
Networking Coffee Break Sponsor
Intralinks
https://www.intralinks.comIntralinks, an SS&C company, is a leading financial technology provider for the global dealmaking, alternative investments and capital markets communities. As pioneers of the virtual data room, our technology enables and secures the flow of information, empowering our customers to work more productively and with complete confidence. Intralinks facilitates strategic initiatives such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate lending, debt sales, capital raising and investor reporting. Our solutions enhance these activities by streamlining operations, reducing risk, improving client experiences and increasing visibility. We’ve earned the trust and business of more than 99 percent of the Global Fortune 500 and have executed over $35 trillion in financial transactions on our platform.
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