General Atlantic completed its first growth equity investment in Japan and plans to do more, citing an increase in entrepreneurship in a country long considered a backwater for startups.
The New York-based private equity firm said it purchased a $96 million (¥14.9 billion) minority stake in human resources software platform SmartHR from early-stage investor Coral Capital. SmartHR is one of Japan’s few unicorns, defined as a company with a valuation of $1 billion or more, and counts KKR and Sequoia Capital among its investors.
"About two years ago, we had the hypothesis that there was an entrepreneurial renaissance in Japan and there was a new generation of managers that were creating service companies with high ambitions and high growth,” General Atlantic Co-President Martín Escobari said in an interview.
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