When we formed Shearwater in September 2018, we didn’t spend much time pondering the naming of the entity. We felt ‘Growth Equity’ more or less captured what we thought we would do – invest capital for equity in order to help grow a business. So we decided on Shearwater Growth Equity…and off we went.

Over the past two years, though, we’ve realised Growth Equity is a distinct part of the investing spectrum itself. We knew this at the time of course! But it has led to some confusion at times.

So, ever the minimalists with words, we’ve decided to rename as Shearwater Capital. It says what we do on the box. It’s less likely to be confused with late stage growth capital. And we now have one less word to type when filling in forms!

So, welcome to Shearwater Capital.

Just while I pen this, I’m often asked where the name Shearwater came from. Well, shortly after Mike invested in my digital medial start-up Conversant Media in 2007, I received an email from him from a boat sailing around Macquarie island. Mike described sitting on the deck one night as he watched a bird glide alongside him for a few hours as he was pondering his future. He described in the email how excited he felt about the prospect of investing in high growth tech businesses. Mike said that he’d like me to be involved in this business if I ever sold my company. The bird, of course, was a Shearwater. And the company, with the important addition of Charles, is Shearwater Capital.