Empowering sustainable innovation: Alliance with Unison Capital and SDG Impact Japan

Together with with Unison Capital Group, we are delighted to announce an agreement principle to launch a new growth-stage capital fund and set up a forum to enable venture companies to make a greater contribution to building a sustainable society.

The need for growth stage capital in Asia-Pacific

With the expanding needs for building a sustainable society in the area such as carbon neutrality and circular economy, Asia Pacific has seen a surge of innovation and significant early-stage venture capital investment in some of these areas. But what is still missing is the growth stage capital to help scale promising companies and to support them becoming real contributors in solving the challenges – this initiative helps address this opportunity. Unison in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and India, and SDG Impact Japan with strategic partners across Asia-Pacific region, have been respectively supporting entrepreneurs and companies in those regions. We believe that the two organizations can create greater synergies by working together.

A pioneering fund for sustainable ventures

Together, we will establish a fund that will provide growth capital to innovative venture companies in the Asia Pacific region that aim to contribute to the promotion of a sustainable society. In addition, Unison and SDG Impact Japan will establish a forum of thought leadership in sustainable tech that brings together great minds of entrepreneurs, investors, and large corporations in the region and beyond to discuss the challenges and opportunities around sustainability, and to enable venture companies to make a greater contribution to building a sustainable society.

Steve Leonard, current CEO of Singularity University, will join as a managing partner, and will serve as SDG Impact Japan’s lead for the fund and the forum. We will also seek for a strategic collaboration with Singularity University to support this fund and the forum.

Singularity University is a global impact organization that looks into the future to help leaders better understand how exponential technology will shape businesses and societies in the years ahead. Over the past decade, Singularity has worked with more than 75,000 leaders drawn from corporations, nonprofits, governments, investors and academia to solve world’s greatest challenges.

“Unison Capital Group has a long track record of ESG focused investments in Japan and Korea. We have long acknowledged business opportunities of providing growth capital to venture companies that aim to build sustainable social infrastructure. In the last few years, we have invested our proprietary capital to sustainability-focused venture companies in Japan, Singapore and India. And now we are very excited to partner with SDG Impact Japan, who has so much expertise and experience in this area, to expand this investment across the Asia Pacific region” said Mr. Osamu Yamamoto, the CEO of Unison Capital Management.

Focus on creating new capital flows that accelerate sustainable development

“We see compelling investment opportunities across the Asia Pacific to address the world’s most pressing sustainability challenges. Together with Unison Capital, one of Japan’s leading private equity firms with extensive investment experience in the Asia Pacific region, we will leverage our network to source great opportunities, and help these companies amplify impact and sustainability with our team of experts” said Mr. Mamoru Taniya, Chairman of SDG Impact Japan.

About Unison Capital Group

Unison is a private equity investment firm founded in 1998 and based in Japan, Korea and Singapore. Unison is a pioneer in buyout investments in small and mid-cap companies in Japan and Korea, and has a cumulative track record of $5 billion in equity investments across five funds in Japan and two funds in Korea.