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Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York:

In a world obsessed with startups, Unity Group, a Singapore-based private equity firm is trying out a new model. Rather than investing in the next upstart firm, Unity is working with entrepreneurs that have well performing small to medium sized businesses, that operate debt free and have a clear track record of profitability. Unity Group's principals are grouping similar small businesses together to form an agglomeration and listing those holding companies to create a permanent capital structure.

"We are very cynical about startups," Unity Group founder and CEO Jeremy Harbour explains in an interview with Opalesque. "We see them as R&D for large corporates - largely for free - until the point of acquisition. It's a model that isn't great for innovation or entrepreneurs."

Harbour and partner Callum Laing, each have experience as entrepreneurs and M&A guys. Having seen both sides of M&A, they've decided to build a private equity firm that doesn't invest like a private equity firm. Rather than raising big funds to target specific companies, Unity uses its own capital to develop agglomerations around specific market segments.

Unity's first agglomeration - The Marketing Group - is a global marketing and advertising company made up of smaller units that were previously disparate marketing businesses. The Marketing Group started with 4 small to medium sized marketing businesses and quickl......................

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