Friday, July 24, 2009

Innovation Exhibition 2009

The Innovation Investor Exhibition at the Maropeng Conference Centre on the 18 - 19 August is connecting innovators, inventors and investors.

It’s a phenomenal expo for anyone wanting to take an idea to market, network with innovators, anyone looking for finance, or become more acutely informed of the state of innovation and its place in South Africa.

Not only will you expose your brand to the cutting edge of innovation drivers in our country but you have a bevy of guest speakers who will deliver their knowledge in your own exhibitor’s breakaway group. Updates on venture capital; Case studies of entrepreneurs to inspire the most jaded professionals, value of research, (“You cannot improve it if you cannot measure it ‘says Kelvin); Putting a product on the market; Governments’ role in innovation. Enough to keep you enthralled and scrambling for the next speaker while the main delegates are out of your expo space and into the conference seats.

If you’ve been too busy, take a few seconds to book your stand right now It’s an awesome event that you just cannot miss! And it all happens at the Maropeng Conference Centre with its innovative architecture and inspirational setting in the award-winning world Heritage Site, Cradle of Humankind west of Johannesburg.

Read more of this innovation initiative on www.innovationsummit.co.za

Saturday, July 11, 2009

PPC and Venture Capitalists

Pay Per Click (PPC) seems to be the flavour of the moment with South African venture capital firms and I am a little surprised - I thought that the model was pretty mature and wouldn't have presented that many potential opportunities.

InVenfin recently invested in Ad Dynamo and a few months back HBD made a similar investment in another local player. Just find it quite interesting that this is where venture capitalists with quite a good "top-down" view of the industry decide to spend their money... Thoughts?

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Nice site

From the Bad Entrepreneur blog:

If you have even a passing interest in either financing your small business or investing in someone elses idea then I'd like to recommend you check out the InvestorsNetwork.co.za website.

It is a local site which basically serves as a meeting place for entrepreneurs. You can either pitch your small business or meet up with potential investors. The nice thing about them is that they have already recorded 185 registrations on their site - which I would take to mean that they have a bit of a following.

The services they reckon they offer:

* To assist in the funding of emerging ventures.
* To present pre-screened deals to capital providers.
* To educate entrepreneurs on the investor mentality.
* To provide a vigorous meeting forum for all business professionals.

Anyway - let me know what you think of their site and what they have to offer.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Pay Per Click Tech Company Receives VC Funding from InVenfin

Introduction
Ad Dynamo International has concluded a funding agreement with InVenFin (Pty) Ltd., which sees InVenFin providing venture capital funding to Ad Dynamo in return for equity.

About Ad Dynamo
Ad Dynamo was founded by Entelligence Limited.

Sean Riley takes on the role of Chief Executive Officer of Ad Dynamo, whose head office is in Cape Town. Ad Dynamo operates a pay per click advertising solution, which offers advertisers a cost effective means to market themselves online.

Ad Dynamo has already achieved a notable presence in South Africa, with some key advertisers and website publishers already partnering with the company. Future plans include rollout into International markets and the introduction of innovative advertising solutions that give both advertisers and website owners flexibility and choice.

The Ad Dynamo product offering
Ad Dynamo provides website operators with the ability to earn revenue from advertising on their websites. Any website can place a small snippet of code on their web page which delivers advertising onto the web page and the website owner starts earning revenue immediately. Revenues are shared transparently with website operators.

Ad Dynamo sources advertisers, allowing them to bid on keywords relevant to their products. These advertisements are then contextually delivered to the most relevant web pages, ensuring a non-intrusive advertising experience for users visiting a website, and increasing the likelihood of users interacting with the advertisement since it has contextual relevance to them.

Advertisers enjoy the popular Pay Per Click pricing model, and by setting a daily maximum budget, which manages expenditure, Ad Dynamo welcomes both small and large advertisers alike.

Over and above traditional contextual advertising, Ad Dynamo supports other advertising channels and has recently launched support for MXit advertising.

The Future
Ad Dynamo currently serves ads on over 155,000 unique web pages in South Africa, delivering over 40 Million ads per month. Ad Dynamo has secured a number of key website publishers and continues to expand its presence in the contextual ad delivery market place.

Ad Dynamo is poised to expand its offering on an International scale.

Sean Riley says: “We are pleased to have attracted venture capital funding from a VC fund as highly regarded as InVenFin. Not only do they bring capital, but access to an International business network and huge experience in commercialization. The investment allows Ad Dynamo to introduce its advertising technology into new global markets and to continue innovating its product offering.”