What do we work on?

At Provum, we tackle large systemic problems that will improve the quality and length of life of all Australians. We work with innovative founders who have identified technological innovations or business model opportunities. We understand that the regulatory nature of the markets in which we focus requires Provum to take a long-term view on investment and innovation cycles. 

Broadly speaking, the projects that we work on must have a mixture of the following elements: 

1. Seek significant technology or business model innovation 

   We are interested in working on projects that have an unusual technological approach, venture into uncharted markets or take contrarian approaches to existing markets. Tinkering at the edges of existing business models isn’t really our style, as we like to shake things up.  

2. Target large markets with annuity cash flows

   We are interested in disrupting large existing markets. We love breaking monopolies, and targeting opportunities where our competitors are large, cumbersome and struggle to compete on good customer service.

   We also prioritise opportunities that have annuity revenue streams, such as those with repeat custom. Once-off transactions, such as consulting or tender opportunities are incongruent with our investment philosophy. 

   If you can identify a billion dollar market (versus a million dollar market) with a credible path to growth, then we are all ears.

    

3. Tackle risk early

   Provum is not looking for good ROI. We are looking to build good ventures. We do recognise, however, that building ventures is inherently risky. Every venture has risk, and we have a deep appreciation for risk. We prefer technology risk to market risk, and we prefer to remove technology and business risks up front. We embrace the ‘fail early and fail often’ approach to innovation. We want to focus on the key risks early, and eliminate them as early as possible. 

How do we work?

How we work as a team is guided by our collective lived experience. We are experienced founders, entrepreneurs and executive managers, and we have learnt a thing or two throughout our working lives. 

We take an active approach, and work with founders to scale ideas into sustainable ventures that generate long lasting and meaningful change. 

The way we work is guided by three key principles: 

1. Provide strategic advice, creative advice AND operational support

   We are in the company-building business, not the “deal” or “capital” business. We work with our venture partners by providing strategic advice, sharing experiences and where appropriate providing operational support. Our shared resources model will ensure entrepreneurs can focus on solving large problems whilst we tackle the administrative tasks, establish governance arrangements and leverage our relationships to build teams, attract partners and customers. 

2. Team oriented

   We believe that the most important aspect of a successful team is the team and culture within that business. We are committed to building strong and high-performing teams within all of our companies.

3. Honest and transparent

   Our view is that business success comes only to those who are committed to open self-assessment and continuous self- improvement. We won’t necessarily assume control of the ventures in which we involve ourselves, but we do tend to have pretty strong opinions. We tend to challenge people, without confronting them. We espouse the need for honesty and transparency 

How we make investment decisions

We are always looking for the next founder or business that is solving a problem that fits the Provum approach.

We will consider all investment decisions based on our approach. Submit a business plan here if you think you are ready to join the Provum community.

Submit business plan

If you are interested in working with Provum Ventures, then please send a full business plan to ventures@provum.com

The document does not need to be long or fancy. It does, however, need to make sense and be grammatically correct.  We like concise, four-to-six page summaries that address the information provided on this page. 

As a guiding principle, we do not sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). But we do respect that ideas are precious, and we will not share any of the information provided outside of our team. 

Due to the volume of plans and materials, it may take us a few weeks to get back to you.

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