Japan's Infinity Ventures joins global alliance

The three firms are rebranding together as a single entity that will operate via bases in Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei, San Francisco, Berlin, Paris, and Sao Paulo. Infinity's operations, which include $300 million under management, will be known as Headline Asia.

Akio Tanaka, a co-founder and managing partner at Infinity, has taken the title of co-founder at Headline. He is joined by Joseph Huang, a partner at Infinity, who is taking up the same role at Headline Asia, as well as several more junior staff members from the Japanese GP.

Much of the plan is based on the belief that collaboration between disparate teams as part of a larger group will grant access to more global data and result in faster understanding of tech trends in different parts of the world. The concept is that ideas are moving internationally at greater speed, requiring more efficient investor responses.

"There is no such thing as purely regional deals anymore," Tanaka said in a statement. "Every regional deal in the future will have an international angle. For VCs to find winners early, and opportunities that scale, you need international intelligence. That's what we have had so far working with E.ventures, and that's what we're betting on further with Headline."

Infinity traces its relationship with E.ventures back 10 years. They have cooperated on several investments, including e-commerce marketplace Groupon Japan, UK-based fashion retailer Farfetch, and Chinese payment platform Yeahka. Farfetch raised $885 million in a US IPO in 2018, while Yeahka generated HK$1.5 billion ($197 million) through a Hong Kong offering in mid-2020.

Infinity invests at the early stages with a focus on media, entertainment, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and financial technology. The firm launched its fourth flagship fund in 2018 with a target of $120 million for deals in Japan and China. As recently as last year, it closed a seed-stage vehicle of undisclosed size dedicated to start-ups participating its semi-annual Launchpad event.

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