ILM East 2012: VCs – Follow the Local Money – Part 1

Hundreds of millions of dollars have now been invested in interactive local media services. Venture capitalists are hot on the trail of new opportunities. At ILM East, BIA/Kelsey CEO Tom Buono and Scott Maxwell, Founder and Senior Managing Director OpenView Venture Partners [@scottnews] discussed the key opportunities and trends they see not only in interactive local media, but in interactive local commerce and mobile services as well.

Generally, Maxwell is rather sanguine about the market signals for IPOs and PEG deals. This could bode well for Facebook’s forthcoming IPO.

For his own fund, Maxwell’s team looks for companies that meet specific criteria such as they have existing  products, customers and distribution channels. Candidate companies must also have had $4M revenues last year, with expectations of hitting $8M this year and looking for $5M to $15M in venture funding.

Maxwell sees opportunities in the mobile space, especially for entrepreneurs that assist SMBs in optimizing their web site for mobile and tablet devices.

Rick Ducey

Rick Ducey is the managing director for BIA/Kelsey. He is an expert in digital media innovations, competitive strategies, new product development and new business models, including digital ecosystem collaboration strategies. Ducey oversees the firm's consulting, research and advisory services areas. He is also the program director for BIA/Kelsey's Video Local Media advisory service. This program provides coverage and analysis of how online, mobile and broadcast video technologies, competition, shifting consumer demographics and media usage trends are driving changes in the media ecosystem and SMBs and other advertisers can be successful in the new environment. Ducey assists clients with their business planning and revenue models, strategic research, market assessment, and designing and implementing digital strategies. He is also a cofounder of SpectraRep, one of BIA�s companies, which sells a patent-pending IP-based alerting system that he co-invented. Prior to joining BIA in 2000, Ducey was senior vice president of NAB's Research and Information Group. In this position, he was in charge of the association�s new technology assessment, audience and policy research, strategic planning and information systems, including all Internet operations, and he also developed publications and seminars. Before joining NAB in 1983, Ducey was a faculty member in the Department of Telecommunication at Michigan State University where he taught and did research in the areas of emerging telecommunication technologies and strategic market research. He also served on the graduate management faculties of George Mason University and George Washington University in telecommunications management and the University of Maryland, where he taught strategic market management and research methodologies. Ducey was selected as the Spring 2011 Shapiro Fellow at George Washington University where he teaches entrepreneurship in new media. He has published a number of research articles and papers in these areas and serves on editorial boards of leading scholarly journals in the communications field. He has also worked at radio stations WSOQ-AM/WEZG-FM and Upstate Cablevision in North Syracuse, New York. Ducey received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University, M.S. from Syracuse University and B.A. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

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