Quona’s New Responsible Exits Approach: A Commitment to Authentic Purpose & Performance

By Kristin Sadler

Quona Capital has long been at the forefront of responsible impact investing, with a focus on advancing inclusive fintech in emerging markets. From the outset, we have proactively integrated a lifecycle approach into assessing, measuring, and managing impact, which includes a thoughtful and strategic approach to investment exits. This reflects our dual commitment to generating impact alongside attractive financial returns and liquidity for our LPs.

In 2020, Quona became an early signatory to the Impact Principles, underscoring a commitment that explicitly calls for considering sustained impact at exit. To deepen our work in this space, we recently articulated a revamped Responsible Exits Framework.

Why Responsible Exits Matter

For impact investors, exits represent pivotal moments, providing opportunities to both preserve and enhance impact alongside realizing financial returns. However, Principle 7 of the Impact Principles — Impact at Exit — remains underdeveloped relative to other principles across the industry, primarily due to the complexity introduced by varying investor roles, asset classes, and market stages. Additionally, investors in many asset classes are only recently beginning to navigate exits as portfolios mature.

This gap was recently underscored by leading verification provider BlueMark in their latest “Making the Mark” impact benchmarking report. This report, as well as previous versions, underscored that the median verification rating for “Impact at Exit,” or Principle 7, remains moderate, in contrast to more advanced ratings in other principles. Notably, the same report recognized Quona’s impact leadership, featuring Quona’s Fund III on its Leaderboard following a Platinum rating in BlueMark’s Fund ID assessment.

A Lifecycle Approach to Exits

For Quona, supporting long-term impact is not an afterthought, but a part of the entire investment process. As such, exit considerations are not confined to the time of exit, but are integrated from the outset, beginning in pre-investment due diligence and continuing through portfolio engagement. We develop investment theses that have the potential to generate impact and attractive financial returns. The teams assess a company’s potential for financial inclusion at scale during diligence, deepen that impact through active portfolio management and board engagement, and collaborate with stakeholders to sustain impact post-exit.

Our Responsible Exits Framework (as seen in our 2024 Impact Report) outlines a structured approach to managing impact throughout the investment lifecycle. This approach can be broken down into three phases:

1. Impact Diligence (Pre-Investment):

• Quona carefully selects investments with sustainable, inherently impactful business models and strong theories of change.
• Extensive due diligence ensures that impact and ESG considerations are central from the start.
• Impact baselines and expectations aligned with Quona’s “Access, Quality, Markets” impact framework and the Five Dimensions of Impact are established, along with Quona’s contribution thesis, via our proprietary Impact Scorecard. Impact risks are also identified.
• Potential exit scenarios are identified early, including an assessment of the likelihood of impact continuity.

2. Impact Management (Active Investment):

• Impact performance is monitored via regular KPI reports and Quona’s Annual Impact Performance Review.
• Impact is embedded into follow-on decision-making.
• Strategic support is provided to portfolio companies to support impact depth and longevity.
• Early engagement in exit planning to proactively identify potential scenarios, assess impact drivers and risks, and actively drive optimal outcomes.

3. Impact at Exit (Post-Exit or Transition):

• Potential exit opportunities are assessed to understand alignment with company growth and impact objectives.
• Quona evaluates the impact achieved at exit and the likelihood of sustained positive outcomes.
• Lessons learned from each exit are documented to refine Quona’s approach going forward.

Case Study: Contabilizei

One recent example of Quona’s Responsible Exits approach in practice is the partial exit from Contabilizei. Founded in 2013, Contabilizei has been a pioneer in the Brazilian tech space, providing innovative online accounting, tax, and financial solutions for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs). In 2024, Quona sold ~50% of its position to Warburg Pincus and Wellington Management, realizing nearly twice the investment in the company while preserving additional upside for the fund limited partners.

Here’s an overview of how Quona’s approach was applied:

• Impact Diligence: At the time of Quona’s initial investment in 2018, Contabilizei operated primarily as an accounting and tax filing SaaS provider helping small businesses navigate the complex Brazilian environment. Quona recognized the potential to integrate embedded financial services, leveraging Contabilizei’s robust platform and proprietary data to offer financial products tailored to the needs of MSMEs in Brazil.
• Impact Management: Quona actively supported Contabilizei’s launch of embedded financial services. By June 2024, Contabilizei had 45,000 active MSME bank accounts, achieving over 40% penetration of its subscriber base. Significantly, these customers demonstrated a 30–50% higher lifetime value (LTV) compared to non-fintech users, as embedded financial services are driving enhanced retention, monetization, and customer experience reflected in better Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
• Impact at Exit: Leveraging its long-standing relationships, Quona strategically pursued a partial exit to premier private equity investors Warburg Pincus and Wellington Management. Both buyers were selected for their strong reputations and capacity to support mature companies like Contabilizei in their continued growth, as well as for their alignment with the company’s strategic direction and focus on Brazil’s underserved MSME segment.

Since Quona’s initial investment in 2018, Contabilizei has grown its customer base by ~8x, expanding from core accounting services to a comprehensive software and fintech platform serving over 120K MSMEs. Welcoming new strong financial and operating backers into the cap table aligns with Quona’s commitment to growing Contabilizei’s impact in Brazil.

For more, please see Quona’s 2024 Impact Report.

To learn more about Quona Capital, please visit quona.com.