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Recent Posts
Version One
A few weeks ago I published my thoughts about application studios on this blog and today I am happy to announce the launch of new app studio, Vancouver-based Social Crowd Ventures. Social Crowd Ventures is a joint project between W Media and Adarsh Pallian, the very talented developer behind chart.ly and Tweetizen, and plans to […]
Entrepreneurship
2 years after its launch the Facebook platform can almost be considered mature and the new belle in application town is Twitter (with apparently already over 11K applications). Due to the very low barriers to entry both platforms have become very crowded in a short period of time so it is time to ask the […]
Portfolio
As already announced last week, Seattle-based Yapta just closed a $2 million Series B led by Voyager Capital and I am very happy to announce that W Media participated in this round. Yapta is a online travel shopping service that monitors airfare and hotel prices for travelers. Led by CEO Tom Romary, the company has […]
Portfolio
W Media Ventures has so far shied away from investments in the mobile space, partly because of a lack of exciting opportunities but most importantly because the sector has lacked a few attributes that the Internet provides: multiple monetization opportunities (business models in the mobile space were until recently mostly controlled by carriers) and an […]
Entrepreneurship
Today, Michael Yurechko started working for Carrie & Danielle. How Michael got to the company? He commented on Fred Wilson’s blog on a post that was discussing if you need a college degree to be an entrepreneur, Fred connected him to me as Michael is from Vancouver, I met with Michael, liked him and offered […]
Entrepreneurship
I attended the yearly ThinkEquity conference in Half Moon Bay at the beginning of this week and have to congratulate the organizers for putting on one of the best events where private technology companies can present to investors. This year’s conference focused on 3 major areas: social gaming, display advertising and education (2 of the […]
Entrepreneurship
After I got asked twice yesterday about where I currently saw opportunities in the consumer Internet space so it felt like good timing to sum up my thoughts on this topic in a quick blog post. Here are the 3 areas that I find the most interesting for the moment: Better targeting and increased accountability […]
Portfolio
Long-term partner Acton Capital (for whom I act as a venture partner for North-America) has just announced their first investment of their new late-stage consumer internet fund joining Index Ventures and Highland Capital Partners as an investor in Glasses Direct. UK-based Glasses Direct is Europe’s largest online prescription glasses retailer and will use the funds […]
Portfolio
As already announced this past week, Burda Digital Ventures and W Media Ventures have jointly invested in Escapio.com, a booking platform for selected hotels. Escapio is a sister company of Tripsbytips, the German travel community that Uwe Frers and myself started about 3 years ago. As Uwe is also the entrepreneur behind Escapio, it made […]
Entrepreneurship
Every time I read about Yahoo‘s share of the search market I wonder to what sites the Yahoo traffic is actually going. Here is the mystery: depending on the source, Yahoo’s share of the US search market is around 20% give or take (e.g. Compete numbers or ComScore numbers) but when I look at the […]
Entrepreneurship
RBC came out with a very interesting analysis today that looked at how much Facebook and Google were complements or on a collission course and it got quite some attention among tech blogs (e.g. SI). RBC’s conclusion: Complementary (For Now): Google and Facebook are two of the fastest growing and largest companies on the internet, […]
Portfolio
Securing additional financing is one of the most important (and toughest) tasks for start-ups these days – so I want to congratulate Mike Tan and his team for closing a second round of financing for TeamPages that also brought a few new investors into the company. TeamPages has shown some very good traction over the […]
Entrepreneurship
The past few years have seen an incredible explosion of the creation of unique content – first through blogs, then through social networks, now through communication networks like Twitter. As content creation expanded we moved from the creation of longer, “thought-through” content pieces to short status updates and quick thoughts and “like’s”. In my opinion, […]
Portfolio
Calgary-based Tynt announced today that they closed a $5 million Series A financing with iNovia Capital from Montreal and I am happy that W Media had the opportunity to participate in the financing with a small amount. The company is led by Derek Ball, one of the most successful technology entrepreneurs in Western Canada, and […]
Entrepreneurship
I just finished Dan Ariely‘s new book “Predictably Irrational” and can only recommend it to everybody who is interested in understanding human behavior a bit better. Dan’s book includes tons of research that show how irrational human beings can sometimes be and how we can take better business, policy and personal decisions if we understand […]
Portfolio
I have been watching Michael Cole and his Vancouver-based company Fitbrains for almost two years now and am very happy that I finally got the chance to make an investment in them. Fitbrains develops online brain games and exercises based on scientific research which help keep your mind sharp – you might want to call […]
Entrepreneurship
Techvibes did a great job in putting together a video from last week’s Office Hour event of First Round Capital and W Media Ventures: Techvibes TV presents First Round Capital / W Media’s “Office Hours” at the Agro Cafe from Rob Lewis on Vimeo.
Entrepreneurship
Having heard and read tons of anecdotal stories about Murdoch in the past years, I finally wanted to fully understand how Murdoch got to where he is today (most like the most powerful media mogul in the world). So I started Michael Wolff’s new Murdoch biography “The man who owns the news” during the Christmas […]
Entrepreneurship
I am very happy to announce that First Round Capital, one of the most successful VC in the consumer internet space, is coming to Vancouver and will host an Office Hours event together with W Media on Jan 15 from 4pm to 6pm. For all other details (what the heck is an Office Hour event?) […]
Version One
2008 is almost over so it is time for a review of the year – here is what I am taking away from 2008 (and what I think about 2009): In the past few months we have experienced the fastest economic meltdown since a long time – perhaps ever, perhaps since the Great Depression but […]