Openness Comes to Money



Having been around VCs and private equity (sometimes because my company helped construct strategy for a private equity events company), I'd sometimes thought that this often clubby, personally connected (and largely white and majority male) group of money purveyors was ripe to have their proprietary and costly databases chipped away at if not blown apart by someone who would make the data more open. Now "A VC" Fred Wilson points out that Angelsoft is showing industry data and that his firm would be glad to contribute to make it better.

He also notes that his Union Square Ventures doesn't subscribe to the expensive industry databases because they already have a good read of the market.

Silicon Alley Insider is doing something conceptually similar, analyzing SEC statements and industry trends, and making the information available for free, rather than keeping it paid and proprietary as Wall St. firms' research departments do.

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