Affirma Capital is the newly formed, independent emerging market private equity firm owned and operated by the long-standing senior leadership of Standard Chartered Private Equity. We manage over US$3.5 billion in assets for leading global limited partners and sovereign wealth funds.
Affirma Capital helps build and nurture national and regional champions by investing in companies backed by strong management teams and founders. Throughout the management teams’ 17-year history of investing in emerging markets, we have deployed over US$6 billion in 100 companies across Asia, Africa and the Middle East and have returned over US$5 billion in cash proceeds to our investors at highly attractive rates of return. Our senior leadership spent over 10 years working together at Standard Chartered Private Equity prior to founding Affirma Capital.
Our investment philosophy, focused on selective origination, disciplined deal structuring and intensive portfolio management, has helped us build a superior track record with realized returns at a significant premium to the MSCI Emerging markets index.
EV Growth is a venture capital firm that aims at Southeast Asia pioneering companies, especially Indonesia, to provide growth-stage capital injections, particularly in Series B and above.
The fund is sponsored by 3 key strategic firms that bring together different backgrounds, capabilities, and strengths:
• East Ventures is the leading early-stage venture capital firm in SE Asia.
• SMDV is the VC arm of the Sinar Mas group, a major corporation with deep resources and network in Indonesia and SE Asia.
• YJ Capital is CVC of Yahoo Japan, a leading publicly traded internet property in Japan.
EV Growth has been actively operating since 2018 and supported multiple prominent startups in the region including Sociolla, Moka, IDN Media, Warung Pintar, and ShopBack.
ShawKwei & Partners is one of the oldest independent private equity fund managers in Asia with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai.
ShawKwei has been investing in middle-market industrial and service companies operating across Asia for over 25 years. Our deep knowledge and experience enable us to understand the unique challenges faced by Asia companies competing in today’s global markets.
We take significant ownership stakes in our investments coupled with a disciplined and hands-on management of those investments. Our investment philosophy includes teamwork to build better businesses and achieve long-term success.
The ShawKwei strategy, methods and practices are specially crafted for private equity investments in businesses operating in Asia. Together they form the partnership between ShawKwei and our portfolio companies.
Square Peg supports outstanding early stage tech founders across Australia, Israel and South East Asia. They are an experienced team who have invested over A$600m and who have deep alignment with founders and investors. The geographies they operate in have attractive tech thematics with Australia now having a virtuous tech cycle that is building momentum, Israel ranking top three in the world for innovation and South East Asia combining favourable demographics with an inflection point in tech growth. Importantly for its investors, Square Peg has delivered a strong track record of performance including three IPOs and four acquisitions of portfolio companies.
Unison Capital, originally founded in 1998 by three founding members, operates mid-cap buyout funds in Japan and Korea. In Japan, Unison Capital is widely recognized as a pioneer in the industry and has the longest track record in its space. In 2014, Unison Capital expanded in Korea to apply its well-tested mid-cap strategy and harness its deep Japan network for value-add.
Since its inception, Unison has launched four Japan-focused funds and invested in 41 companies with 26 exits. Today, Unison manages JPY 70 billion (~$640 million) for Japan Fund IV and KRW 500 billion (~$450 million) for Korea Fund II, respectively.
Unison’s Tokyo and Seoul office comprise of 34 investment professionals, having diverse professional backgrounds in finance, strategy consulting and operations. Furthermore, Unison’s broader network extends to in-house management advisers, financial institutions, consulting firms, and other experts in two countries and beyond to drive the robust growth of our portfolio companies.
