The question "does the world actually need this?" is the first test every company at divergent has to pass. It is asked before the commercial case, not after.
Impact is the word we use for that test. It is not a reporting line or a quarterly review, it is built into the decision to back a company in the first place, and it is revisited for as long as that company is ours.
Three questions, asked at the start of every investment, and asked again at every stage. The answers have to remain honest.
Not a marginal convenience. A problem that has gone unsolved because the market decided the people affected weren't worth building for.
The pricing model has to work for the smallest customer as well as the largest. If the rate card punishes someone for having less leverage, the answer is no.
Not neutrally served, better off. The delta between before and after has to be real, specific, and legible to the people it is supposed to help.
Energy Most EV charging software charges operators a monthly fee per charger, which means small sites, workplaces, independent retailers, community locations, pay before they earn anything. Inflo removes that model entirely: no subscription, no per-device fee, just a percentage of revenue when revenue actually exists. That changes who can afford to run a charging network.
Connectivity Mobile roaming for people and businesses that cannot negotiate their own carrier agreements has always meant paying whatever the carrier decides to charge. Neo replaces that with one flat rate, one device, every country. The benefit is not a loyalty programme. It is a structural one.
Pet care Independent pet care businesses, dog walkers, boarders, groomers, have historically had no booking infrastructure that treated them the same as chains. Reservate charges 3.5p per booking, flat, regardless of size or volume. A one-person operation and a national franchise pay the same rate. That is the point.
Messaging The price of sending SMS and email has always been tiered by volume, which means small businesses pay more per message than large ones. Connect uses Wholesale+ pricing for every customer, of any size. The two-tier market is the problem it is built to solve.
Consultancy Bespoke software has always been priced to exclude the businesses that most need it, agency minimums, enterprise retainers, year-long contracts with six-figure floors. Studio exists to do the opposite: project-based work at transparent rates, shipped by a team that has been together for more than a decade. The businesses agencies treat as rounding errors get the same senior hands as the ones that don't.
These are not targets. They are constraints we hold ourselves to now.