Australia’s GP stake investor Scarcity Partners has picked up a 20% interest in January Capital, a $300-million investment firm which counts Shopback and Akulaku among its portfolio companies.
Key employees of January Capital will continue to retain majority ownership in the firm along with oversight of investment decision-making and day-to-day operations, January said in a social media post.
Scarcity’s Sydney-based founding partner Matthew Webb is joining January’s board as a non-executive director. Adrian Whittingham, who started Scarcity last year and is its managing director, will act as an alternate director and board observer for January.
The investment will help January with its distribution capabilities, partnering with top institutions, family offices and wealth advisory firms, according to Scarcity’s statement.
“With their proven investment track record, unique data-driven tooling and cross asset-class experience, January Capital is exceptionally well-positioned to emerge as a leading investment platform that capitalises on opportunities in the Asia-Pacific technology ecosystem on behalf of their investors,” said Whittingham.
Founded by Benjamin Dunphy, Jason Edwards, and Jonathan Hodson, January Capital has completed more than 75 transactions, including investments in Southeast Asian companies such as aCommerce and Kargo, over the past five years.
In July, January led a $2.6-million (S$3.5 million) seed funding round in Heymax.ai, a Singaporean personal finance and shopping platform. Known as an equity investor for startups, it had welcomed venture debt veteran Chin Chao to expand into the strategy last year, DealStreetAsia reported.
January is Scarcity’s third investment from its GP stake fund, which is a semi-liquid vehicle seeking between 5 and 15 asset managers, targeting returns of 20% per annum.
Scarcity is among the limited number of GP stake investors buying into Asia Pacific-based asset managers as the niche secondaries strategy is more popular in the US and Europe, where deal supply is more robust and investment firms are more established.
GP stake investments in Asia have historically been driven by strategic purposes. Among such recent deals are Singapore’s CapitaLand Investment purchasing a 40% stake in pan-Asia real estate fund SC Capital Partners for S$280 million with a commitment to buy the remaining portion by 2030. Another Temasek-linked investment firm Seviora Holdings also bought into regional private credit shop ADM Capital earlier this year.
