New fund in Quebec (April Fools)
April 1st, 2008
There has been a lot of activity these days in the startup community (much more than on my own blog..!). Many funds and great initiatives were announced recently but one slipped right through the radar and I’m surprised that no one talked about it so far. A small group of local businessmen decided to create a special fund for Web 2.0 companies in Montreal. I recently spoke to Mr. Zingel and Taimen who tried to explain me their unusual funding system. Their belief is that rather than investing in business that have good business plan, they invest in companies that disturb the market with a large buzz words ratio. Their financial advisor (Mr. Sillago) realised that most companies that succeed might not have a good business plan in the beginning (think of Youtube) but often bring new technology that is not heard of. Youtube for example brought many new technology (think live streaming of video files, etc.) It thus has a large “buzz ratio” (which makes them drool in other words).
While I am somehow doubtful this funding model will work, Mr. Taimen says that it has attracted some interest from a lawyer firm (Fierasfer, Ilisha, Saury & Huchen) and many investors from Quebec, Ontario and, interestingly enough, most coastal provinces.
Posted in Quebec | Comments (4)
April 1st, 2008 at 10:07 am
but is there a pace somewhere about them?
thanks
April 1st, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I know it wasn’t very obvious but it might help if you Google the names listed in the post
April 1st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Hmm…. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zingel and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hucho_taimen
Say, your Mr. Zingel and Taimen don’t belong to a certain type of fish that only make their appearance once a year… on April 1st, for example?!
April 1st, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Yup…! It took me a while to think about the “buzzwords investing technique”. Perhaps I should patent this