Making a Better World.
One Company at a Time.
Quzilla Capital is a new breed of private equity fund that invests in Small to Medium-sized Enterprises ("SMEs") in Japan. We focus our investments on potential targets that will benefit from our unique set of value-adding methods centered around digitalization and globalization. By re-aligning the portfolio companies' business structure along digital and global strategies, we accelerate their revenue and earnings growth, thereby improving cash flows and exit valuation multiples for the benefit of all stakeholders. We believe our unique approach will enable Quzilla Capital to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns for investors, while preserving our core belief that all stakeholders, including the employees of our portfolio companies, will benefit.
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A New Buyout Fund in the Digital Age
In an age in which the digitalization brings about disruptions to existing business models and invites new types of competitors from previously unrelated business sectors, buyout funds also need to be in the position to lead the digital transformation to survive and thrive. We are the first (and so far, the only) Japanese buyout fund truly committed to turning our portfolio companies into digital disruptors. While many of our peers tend to focus only on capital structure optimization and operational improvements, we go beyond traditional private equity sponsor models by implementing end-to-end digitalization across all departments and business processes. We tackle everything from customer touchpoint to backend cloud-integration to provide a wonderful, seamless experience to end-customers, enabling our portfolio companies to achieve sustainable growth during our investment horizon and beyond.
Once-in-a-generation Investment Opportunity
99.7% of the Japanese companies are SMEs (c.3 million of them), of which c.1.3 million companies have no designated successors in sight. Today many ageing shareholders have already put their companies on sale or are actively seeking to do so, but only a handful of financial sponsors are in the position to buy them. We found this imbalance extremely compelling. Quzilla Capital was founded in 2018 to take a full advantage of the imminent influx of SME ownership in the Japanese market. Being an active buyer in this particular market yields various benefits that can rarely be found in markets elsewhere; seemingly inexhaustible list of time-constrained sellers, limited competition, and low valuation. We are uniquely sized and positioned to capitalize on the unprecedented seismic shift in the Japanese corporate demographics.
Compassionate Capital for All Stake Holders
Quzilla Capital is a buyout fund that is committed to all stakeholders - investors, customers, employees, communities and even the future owners of this planet. We believe that value can be created by optimizing current resources, rather than abandoning them, especially when it comes to human capital. As we relentlessly pursue the optimization and automation of the workforce through digitalization, we also provide all necessary reskilling opportunities to the employees who would otherwise be displaced by these disruptive, yet necessary, actions. We are compassionate capitalists committed to the well-being of all people and communities we engage with, and are confident that such commitment will yield superior long-term returns to our valued investors.
Our Team
Shinji Takeuchi
Founder and CEO
Shinji Takeuchi founded Quzilla Capital in April 2018 after successfully exiting his holding in IMJ, one of Japan's largest full-service digital marketing companies, to Accenture Digital. In the IMJ transaction, Mr. Takeuchi came up with the original plan and gathered a group of investors to create an SPC, then secured an LBO loan of JPY2.7bn from Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation to take JASDAQ-listed IMJ private through a tender offer. Meanwhile he became CFO (and later CEO) of IMJ, which, at the time, had been suffering from four straight years of net loss with a rapidly declining top line. He brought financial discipline, strategic focus and organizational realignment to the company, and this culminated in six consecutive years of record profit from 2012 to 2017. Accenture acquired IMJ in 2016 at a hefty premium. Prior to leading the IMJ investment, Mr. Takeuchi was a co-founder/partner at Crosspoint Advisors, Japan's leading independent M&A advisory/investment fund. Before co-founding Crosspoint Advisors, he was a Vice President at Lehman Brothers and was also the president of a boutique investment bank he founded in 2003 at the age of 27. He started his career in 1998 at Lehman Brothers as an analyst in the M&A group, and later joined Morgan Stanley (1999-2003), where he worked on a variety of M&A and restructuring assignments in both Tokyo and New York. He received a BA in International Relations and Economics from Claremont McKenna College, where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.