categories
HOT TOPICS
- The Accelerator Conundrum
- The Startup Velocity Question
- Platform as a Service
- Man and Superman
- Web 3.0 = (4C + P + VS)
- The Future: End of Capitalism
- Capitalism 2.0
sequoia
Online Dating & Web 3.0 (Part 5)
M&A and VC activity Match.com, a business unit of IAC, acquired edodo in China and Netclub in France in February this year. Match operates 35 country sites in 15 languages. The deal will add 4 million subscribers to Match.com’s already existing 15 million. In January 2007, Meetic acquired DatingDirect, a UK online dating site, for
Online Music & Web 3.0 (Part 5)
M&A and VC activity In May 2007, CBS Corp. acquired Last.fm, a UK-based music community site that allows fans with similar tastes to connect, for $280 Million, in a bid to attract young audiences. Napster acquired AOL Music’s subscription service for $15 million in cash in January 2007. The acquisition gave Napster 350,000 subscribers of
Women & Web 3.0 (Part 5)
M&A and VC activity NBC Universal acquired iVillage, the most popular women’s site along with its other Internet properties for $600 million in 2006. Glam Media, the number one women’s property on the Net as per the latest comScore ranking raised $18.5 million in Series C funding from Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures (DAG), Accel
Facebook’s Monetization Strategy (Part 3)
I’ll give you one more vertical, and then stop. You can figure out the rest yourselves. Travel is a great vertical for Facebook, and in fact, creating contextual services like Group Travel could be very cool. According to the latest data published by eMarketer, online travel sales zoomed to over $78.8 billion in 2006 in
Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 7)
Chris earlier brought up Compartamos, an MFI currently operating in Mexico. It seems they have a solid customer base and a very profitable business strategy – further proof of the validity of cash-positive microfinance business models. SM: How many loans does Compartamos have ath the moment? CB: I think they have about 600,000 customers. I
Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 5)
Here the conversation directly addresses a common assumption that microfinance is not a profitable business model. SM: I would like to get back on topic and drill down on the assumption on returns. Microfinance may charge 18-25% interest and even so does not get even close to the types of returns the venture capital funds
Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 4)
The strategy of running an investment firm may vary, but the end goal is always healthy and compelling returns. SM: So you manage Unitus as a professional investment opportunity with similar goals as venture capital firms? CB: We look at investing very much as a derivative of venture capital. I would argue it is just
Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 1)
Chris Brookfield is the Investment Director at Unitus Investment Management Company. He has been a venture capital and private equity investor his entire professional career. In 2004 he co-founded Open Water Investors. Chris has also been an Associate at Redleaf Venture Management, a Silicon Valley seed stage venture investor, and is familiar with pure play
