Aquilius
Aquilius set out to become the most trusted secondaries firm in Asia Pacific, but its self-built landing page said none of that to the sovereign wealth funds and endowments it courts. We designed and built the WordPress platform it launched on, and the same build is still running the firm's site four years later.
A custom WordPress platform designed to the standards of the investors Aquilius serves, launched ahead of the firm's US$400 million maiden fund close and still carrying the site in 2026.
The Challenge
What we were solving
Aquilius Investment Partners provides liquidity solutions across Asia Pacific's private capital markets. Founded in Singapore by industry veterans Bastian Wolff and Christian Keiber, the firm buys and restructures private equity and real estate positions for the most demanding audience there is: sovereign wealth funds, endowments, insurance companies and family offices.
When Aquilius came to us in late 2022, the firm was young and the website was a placeholder. The team had built a landing page in-house, and it showed: visual inconsistencies, thin content, and none of the sophistication an institutional investor expects before wiring nine-figure commitments. A firm whose stated ambition was to be the most trusted secondaries firm in Asia Pacific had a website that undercut the word "trusted" on first load.
The audience raised the stakes. Institutional allocators do not respond to hard sells or loud design; they read for signals of discipline, discretion and experience. The brief we agreed with the founders was specific: professional, subtle (not too loud), trustworthy, clear, high integrity. Success meant a site that could sit alongside Blackstone and Partners Group in a due diligence tab bar without looking like the startup in the room.
Our Approach
How we tackled it
Design for the reader who is judging you
The design strategy session set the register before anything was drawn. We reviewed the firms Aquilius is measured against (regional specialists like TR Capital and NewQuest, and global houses like Blackstone, Partners Group and Ares) and built the visual language around restraint: Singapore imagery chosen to avoid the tourist cliches, a subtle video treatment on the home page, a loading animation built from the Aquilius logo, and full-screen card layouts with GSAP animation that move the visitor through Home, About, Solutions and Contact in a deliberate sequence. We also revised the corporate logo with a new typeface and set up the firm's LinkedIn company profile, so the brand read consistently everywhere an allocator might check.
A build the firm could grow into
The site runs on a custom, responsive HTML5 WordPress child theme with Bootstrap underneath for cross-device consistency. Content is managed through Advanced Custom Fields Flexible Content modules, which means the Aquilius team can add and rearrange page sections without a developer and without breaking the design system.
That flexibility was a plan, not a nicety. The launch sitemap deliberately held Investors and ESG sections back as a second phase, with News following close behind launch, so the site could expand as the firm did. We finished with the unglamorous essentials done properly: SEO foundations, Google Analytics, multi-breakpoint testing, and CMS training delivered through video tutorials and live sessions so the team could run the site independently.
The Solution
What we delivered
Aquilius launched with a web presence that matched its ambition, and the timing mattered. In April 2023, months after the new site went live, the firm announced the final close of its maiden fund, AIP Secondary Fund I, at over US$400 million in commitments (plus a further US$200 million in managed accounts), backed by exactly the investors the site was designed to reassure. The website did not raise that fund, but it was the front door every one of those allocators walked past on the way in.
The build has kept pace since. The Investors and ESG sections planned as phase two are live today, along with Team, News and Careers, and the firm's site still runs on the custom WordPress theme we built (copyright 2026 in the footer). Four years on, the platform describes a leadership team that has provided over US$4 billion in liquidity solutions and holds 500+ active LP and GP relationships, and it still does so inside the design system we set in 2022.
What we learned
Finance clients buy confidence, and confidence is mostly subtraction. The strongest decisions on this project were the things we left out: no loud colour, no marketing exclamation, no stock-photo Singapore skyline at sunset. When the audience is a sovereign wealth fund's diligence team, the design's job is to remove reasons for doubt.
The other lesson is to build for the company the client is becoming, not the one they are today. Aquilius launched lean, but the ACF module system and the phased sitemap meant Investors, ESG and Careers could be added without a redesign. A first-generation website for a fast-growing firm should be judged by how gracefully it absorbs year three, and this one has absorbed year four.
