Business

商业

Ad space for equity

为股票做广告

Air for shares

股票时间

Could an unusual venture-capital model be taking off?

一项不同寻常的风险投资模式能够起飞吗？

IN AMERICA, venture capital is plentiful. Not so elsewhere. In Europe, a handful of companies are helping struggling start-ups with an unusual model: investing advertising space in them instead of money.

美国风险资金十分丰富， 但是并非所有地方都是这样。 在欧洲，一些公司正以非同寻常的模式帮助那些挣扎的新成立的公司：投资广告版面而非直接投钱。

Start-ups usually get their initial seed funding-a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars-from family or friends. A venture-capital firm won't step in until the firm is ready to raise maybe ten times that amount. In America, intermediate sums tend to come from informal "angel investors", typically entrepreneurs who have made a decent bit of money from their own start-ups and want to invest some in projects they like. But outside America's technology hubs, such people are rare.

新成立的公司通常从家人或朋友那里获得初始的种子资金，通常是数万或数十万美元。 只有公司筹集到了数百万的资金时，风险投资才会介入。 在美国，过渡的资金通常来自于非正式的天使投资者， 特别是由新成立的公司发家且希望投资一些中意项目的企业家。 但是在美国科技中心之外，这样的人少之又少。

However, start-ups of that size are often making their first baby steps into the market and need publicity. Aggregate Media Funds, a Swedish firm started in 2002, pools excess advertising space provided by 15 Swedish media companies that are shareholders in the fund, and gives it to start-ups in return for an equity stake (it also plans their marketing for them). If the firms do well, they buy back the equity in cash, which goes to the shareholders, with a cut for the fund. Patrik Rosen, Aggregate's boss, says it has made some 120 investments-in both start-ups and established firms that want to advertise a new product or a stock offering-and completed around 80 "exits", though he won't disclose how much money has been made.

然而，这样规模的新成立的公司通常会迈着婴儿步进入市场并需要广告宣传。 2002年成立的瑞典媒体公司媒体公基金集合了15家瑞典媒体提供的广告版面，并且以交换股权的形式给予新成立的公司。（该公司还会为他们做市场规划。）这15家媒体都是该基金的股东。 如果公司运作良好，他们就会用现金买回股权给予股东，并给基金一份利润。 公基金的老板帕特里克?罗森表示给公司已经做大约120笔投资，都是投在需要为新产品或发行股票的新成立的公司或已成型的公司，并完成了大概80个公司的"退市"，但是他并不会透露赚了多少钱。

Similar models have taken hold in Germany. ProSiebenSat.1, a television company, has been offering other firms advertising in return for equity or revenue shares since 2009, and reported making more than €40m ($56m) in the past year. A newer fund, German Media Pool, founded a year ago, combines a range of shareholders, as Aggregate does, so it can offer its start-ups ads anywhere from billboards to TV. Niko Waesche, the fund's creator, aims to double his investors' money.

德国也兴起了同样的模式。 德国卫星电视频道ProSieben卫星一台在2009年就开始以交换股权或股份的形式为公司提供广告， 去年盈利超过4千万欧元（5千6百万美元）。 成立于一年前的德国媒体基金像媒体公基金一样联合了一批股东。从广告牌到电视的任何地方，它都能够为新成立的公司投放广告。 基金创始人尼科?华思车的目标是使投资者的钱翻倍。

So why is the model not more widespread? It may have a bad reputation. Media firms that negotiate barter deals directly don't always do well: they tend to lack the expertise to invest in start-ups, and the deals may not be transparent. India's largest media firm, the Times Group (aka Bennett, Coleman & Co), which publishes papers such as the Times of India, also owns a media-for-equity firm called Brand Capital, with stakes in around 400 companies. In 2009, under the name Times Private Treatie s, it got embroiled in controversy after India's stockmarket regulator censured a group of people for conspiring to bump up the share price of one of its portfolio companies, and a Times Group journalist for midwifing media coverage. Critics say it is still hard to tell when Indian papers have financial links to firms they write about.

为什么这个模式并没有更广泛的应用呢？ 可能是这个模式名声不好。 协商直接易货交易的媒体公司通常盈利状况不佳：他们通常缺乏投资新成立的公司的专业知识，并且协议可能不透明。 印度最大媒体公司时代集团在发行诸如印度时报之类的报纸的同时也拥有一家媒体换股权的公司，名叫品牌资金，该公司拥有大概400家公司的股份。 2009年,该公司以时代财产转让契约的名义卷入了一场争议,这场争议源于印度股票市场管理机构严厉指责一帮人串通抬高其中一家成员企业的股价和一位时代集团记者为媒体报道推波助澜。 批评者称目前仍然很难确定事情根底，因为印度报纸和其报道的公司有经济联系。

Hence, Mr Rosen argues, the need for independent, diversified media funds to act as middlemen. Even then, not all start-ups need ads-some are happy with social media-and many others would rather have cash instead. Still, for some it is just what they need. And for the media firms, since the ads would otherwise go unfilled, any return is pure profit.  

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