FAQs

What is your typical size and type of investment?
Divergent invests up to $1M (avg $500K) over several rounds of investment. This typically commences at the early commercialisation phase through to the more advanced stages of expansion.

How long does it take you to make an investment decision?
We aim to close a deal within one to three months. For more information about our Investment Application Process click here.

Who are the people behind Divergent Capital?
Divergent is managed by a team of investment professionals lead by David Nelson and Ryan Glick. The business has senior business and industry figures among its non-executive directors and shareholders. For more details on staff and directors click here.

Can I invest in Divergent or its investee companies?
Opportunities to invest in Divergent's current or future fund will be gladly received and responded to on a case-by-case basis. Capital raising activities across our portfolio and in new investments occur from time to time and we are happy to keep interested parties informed as they arise. Please register your interest by contacting us at info@divergent.com.au. 

These opportunities are suitable for sophisticated investors or financial institutions.

Here is an Australian Government Fact Sheet on the ESVCLP

Here is a helpful document on how to present to Investors

A fun video presentation on how to master the Elevator Pitch

Finding a VC (www.avcal.com.au)

Glossary of VC terms (http://www.ventureeconomics.com/vec/glossary.html) 

Business plan guide (Site 1; Site 2; Site 3) 

Government resources for businesses (www.bep.gov.au) 

Information and resources for entrepreneurs (www.entrepreneur.com; www.youngentrepreneur.com; www.inc.com)  

The famous letters to shareholders by Warren Buffett - amazing reading (http://berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html)     

Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
(Harvard Business School Press, 2005, ISBN 1591396190)
See also www.blueoceanstrategy.com

Nine Key Points of Blue Ocean Strategy (BOS)

1. BOS is the result of a decade-long study of 150 strategic moves spanning more than 30 industries over 100 years (1880-2000).
2. BOS is the simultaneous pursuit of differentiation and low cost.
3. The aim of BOS is not to out-perform the competition in the existing industry, but to create new market space or a blue ocean, thereby making the competition irrelevant.
4. BOS offers a total set of methodologies and tools to create new market space.
5. While innovation has been seen as a random/experimental process where entrepreneurs and spin-offs are the primary drivers – as argued by Schumpeter and his followers – BOS offers systematic and reproducible methodologies and processes in pursuit of innovation by both new and existing firms.
6. BOS frameworks and tools include: strategy canvas, value curve, four actions framework, six paths, buyer experience cycle, buyer utility map, and blue ocean idea index.
7. These frameworks and tools are designed to be visual in order to not only effectively build the collective wisdom of the company but also to effectively execute through easy communication.
8. BOS covers both strategy formulation and strategy execution.
9. The three key conceptual building blocks of BOS are: value innovation, tipping point leadership, and fair process.  

Home page for Jim Collins - author of "Good to Great" and "Built to Last" (www.jimcollins.com)

The Economist magazine online (www.theeconomist.com)  

Crossing the Chasm and Inside the Tornado by Geoffrey A. Moore
(Chasm: HarperBusiness, 1991, ISBN 0-88730-717-5)(Tornado: HarperBusiness, 1995, ISBN 0-88730-765-5)

From the preface of Crossing the Chasm: "Our [high-tech] marketing ventures, despite normally promising starts, drift off course in puzzling ways, eventually causing unexpected and unnerving gaps in sales revenues, and sooner or later leading management to undertake some desperate remedy... The point of greatest peril in the development of a high-tech market lies in making the transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation. The gap between these two markets, heretofore ignored, is in fact so significant as to warrant being called a chasm, and crossing this chasm must be the primary focus of any long-term high-tech marketing plan. A successful crossing is how high-tech fortunes are made; failure in the attempt is how they are lost."

Security Analysis, Benjamin Graham & David Dodd
(McGraw-Hill, 1934, ISBN: 0070244960)

Book review of Security Analysis from The Motley Fool, Randy Befumo
Security Analysis is the bible of fundamental analysis. Originally published in 1934, the tome systematically lays bare the science of security analysis. Written with the assistance of cowriter David Dodd, Benjamin Graham's intellectual tour de force has yet to be equaled in the annals of investing. Written only a few years after the devastating stock market crash of 1929, Graham had one objective--to make the investment process as safe as possible using knowledge of key factors about the business.

Beginning with bonds and moving quickly to stocks, Graham and Dodd go over all of the angles. Articulating a comprehensive theory of fixed-value and common stock investment, they examine in detail the various factors that one should consider when valuing securities. Dividends, extraordinary items, depreciation, amortization, capital structure and balance sheet analysis are all described and defined in lurid detail. It is impossible to read Security Analysis and not come away with a deeper understanding of corporate finance and how it relates to investing.

On the downside, let's be frank--Security Analysis is not an easy book to read. However, it remains one of the key textbooks for communicating fundamental analysis to millions of MBAs, in spite of the fact that it first saw print 63 years ago. I personally believe that reading and understanding most of Security Analysis would make a great benchmark for determining whether or not you are ready to start investing your money in specific investments. Sure, Graham is very value-biased in his investment philosophy, but looking for growth without focusing on the price you are paying is the golden road to underperformance.  

The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
(Back Bay Books, 2002, ISBN: 0316346624)
See also www.gladwell.com/tippingpoint/

Where we find inspiration, information or amusement…

Please enjoy a selection of quotes that describe both what we look for in prospective investees and the qualities we look for in prospective management teams: 

"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog".       
- Dwight D. Eisenhower 

"The toughest part of getting to the top of the ladder, is getting through the crowd at the bottom".       
- unknown 

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete".      
- Buckminster Fuller 

"If you're not sure where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else".      
- unknown 

"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare".       
- Japanese Proverb 

"Drive thy business or it will drive thee".
- Benjamin Franklin 

"What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose". 
- Margaret Thatcher 

“Beginning is easy, continuing is hard.”
- Japanese proverb

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living".
- Anais Nin 

"And it ought be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new".
- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince c1505 

"When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts."
- Larry Ellison   

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
- Charles Darwin  

“Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
- Japanese proverb

“Fortune favours the prepared mind.”
- Louis Pasteur

 “There are costs and risks to a program of action, but they are far less than the long range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.”
- J.F.K.