Every morning, I get two private equity industry newsletters in my inbox. One is PE Week Wire from Thomson and the other is VentureWire Alert from Dow Jones.
Today I unsubscribed from Dow Jones.
Why?
Because they're basically the exact same content, except that, with PE Week Wire, I get the commentary (essentially blogging) of Dan Primack, an actual human being with a personality who I've met before. When all content is equal and I can access anything, I'll take my content with a pulse, thank you. Dan runs Final Four tournaments and complains when the "Trusty Pontiac" isn't so trusty.
DJ VentureWire wants me to pay to get anything more than about 8 words and there are no mention of any humans who contribute to the production of their newsletter.
So, here's my choice every morning:
From DJ Newswire:
venture market summary
By VentureWire Staff Reporters
Investors across the Atlantic appear more willing to line up behind companies
raising larger rounds, as the median size of venture capital commitments to
European start-ups in the first quarter reached a six-year high.
(story continues for a few stale paragraphs...)
Chinese Podcasting Site Toodou.com Raises $8.5M Series B
By VentureWire Staff Reporters
5/15/2006 – Toodou.com, a Shanghai-based podcasting Web site, has raised $8.5
million in Series B funding [ full
story ] <-- Subscribers only.
From PE Week Wire:
PE Week Wire -- Monday, May 15 |
Random Ramblings
Back in the saddle after my short Toronto
Hortons coffee and addressed attendees at the Canadian Venture Forum. The former
I did out of tourist obligation, while the latter I did out of professional
obligation. Both went well.
I’m not going to provide a speech transcript (nor could I, since it was based
on just a few lines of written notes), but here’s the gist:
There are three major private equity trends that will likely reshape the
market for decades to come. The first is also the most obvious: Globalization.
Most talk of private equity globalization revolves around investment
opportunities, but the more salient focus should be on helping existing (read:
more localized) portfolio companies leverage the global market. This isn’t to
say that certain firms won’t make millions on Chinese software companies and
Indian drugmakers, but rather that most firms can not reasonably expand their
investment bandwidth to global limits. In other words, Sequoia and DFJ are the
exceptions rather than the rules.
And just enough news to actually inform me of something....
Toodou.com, a Shanghai
podcasting website, has raised $8.5 million in Series B funding. Granite Global
Ventures and JAFCO Asia co-led the deal, and were joined by return backer IDG
Technology Ventures. www.Toodou.com
So who would you rather get your news from? Someone you can have coffee with or a "staff reporter"?