The strategy will focus on sectors including cosmetics, food, pet care, and restaurants, where the firm has extensive consumer sector expertise. The firm primarily targets private, family-run companies facing succession challenges or businesses seeking support for expansion. Since establishing its Japan office in 2017, the firm has invested in nine companies. Its portfolio includes businesses such as furniture distributors, fashion brand Kapital, and the world's largest chain of Kobe beef restaurants. Among its recent investments is restaurant operator HUGE, which runs premium wine bars and dining venues. The company aims to double annual revenue to roughly '30bn as it expands into markets including Hong Kong, Singapore, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....

Shawn Shen believes that AI will need to remember what it sees in order to succeed in the physical world. Shen's company Memories.ai is using Nvidia AI tools to build the infrastructure for wearables and robotics to be able to remember and recall visual memories. Memories.ai announced a collaboration with semiconductor giant Nvidia at its GTC conference on Monday. Through this partnership, Memories.ai uses Nvidia's Cosmos-Reason 2, a reasoning vision language model, and Nvidia Metropolis, an application for video search and summarization, to continue to develop its visual memory technology. Shen (pictured above left) told TechCrunch that he and his co-founder and CTO, Ben Zhou (pictured above right), got the idea for the company while building the AI system behind Meta's Ray-Ban glasses. Building the AI glasses got them thinking about how people would actually use the tech in real life if users couldn't recall the video data they were recording. 'AI is already doing really well in the digital world. What about the physical world'' Shen said. 'AI wearables, robotics need memories as well. ' Ultimately, you need AI to have visual memories. We believe in that future.'...

Chatter about making the 50-plus-year-old quarterly requirement optional has picked up steam in the past year, as companies lament the cost and burden of preparing for quarterly earnings. The requirement is also thought to be one reason why some companies choose to stay private longer. Those in favor of change hope that a semiannual requirement will encourage more companies to go public by making it easier to maintain public company status. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins and President Trump have both voiced support for the idea. The Journal reports that the SEC has already begun discussions with exchanges about potential next steps, though any change is still a long way away. If the SEC releases its proposal ' which could come within the next few weeks ' it will be subject to a public comment period and then a vote. There is precedent for this rule, notes the Journal. Both the European Union and the U.K. eliminated mandatory quarterly reporting roughly a decade ago in favor of semiannual disclosures, though many companies in both markets still report quarterly by choice....

Private equity groups involved in the talks include TPG, Advent International, Bain Capital, and Brookfield Asset Management. Sources said the firms could collectively invest about $4bn in the proposed joint venture. Private equity ownership of enterprise businesses gives firms significant influence over technology procurement and software budgets. That dynamic has encouraged artificial intelligence companies to seek partnerships with buyout groups. Anthropic is reportedly pursuing a similar strategy. The AI company is in talks with private equity firms including Blackstone, Permira, and Hellman & Friedman to establish a venture focused on deploying its Claude AI technology. The potential venture would also support the rollout of OpenAI's enterprise platform Frontier, which aims to help companies integrate AI agents into core business operations through partnerships with consulting firms. Subscribe to our Newsletter to increase your edge. Don't worry about the news anymore, through our newsletter you'll receive weekly access to what is happening. Join 120,000 other PE professionals today....