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Fund.com Inc. (www.fund.com) is an online financial information publisher focused on the $22.6 trillion investment fund market. As an online media company, Fund.com is establishing a destination website of personal finance channels, including mutual funds, hedge funds, money market funds, exchange traded funds (ETFs), closed end funds, commodity funds and other types of pooled investment vehicles. We seek to generate pay-for-performance online advertising revenue by connecting highly motivated investors with financial product providers.
For product providers like ETF issuers, we offer asset-based licensing agreements for our Index content, including the EQUITIES(R) Hedge Fund Index, where we are paid recurring fees as a percentage of Indexed assets under management. Our online lead generation is highly complementary to our licensing business by assisting the growth of index-linked assets of our clients. Our affiliation with a print platform established in 1951 assists in making us an authoritative source of investment information and an effective online advertiser.
Why Invest in Fund.com Inc.?
- Fund.com Inc. (FNDM) has made significant investment in Online Publishing, including the acquisition of the domain names, fund.com and accreditedinvestor.com.
- Management includes experienced Internet executives who are in charge of developing the fund.com marketplace, which will include Web2.0 community functionality and certain investment portfolio analysis engines. The Fund.com Beta is anticipated to launch in Spring ’08.
- Fund.com Inc Subsidiaries include:
- Index Licensing: Fund.com Managed Products Inc (FMP)
- Index-linked Investments: Fund.com Capital Inc
- Online Publishing: Fund.com Technologies Inc.
- Fund.com Inc currently offers licenses to the EQUITIES Hedge Fund Index through Fund.com Managed Products Inc. The Company has arrangements with third party providers to license its Index. Fund.com Inc. was successful in recruiting senior management with direct Index licensing experience, including years with leading financial institutions Credit Suisse, Fortis and Bank of New York.
- Fund.com Inc. has capitalized its Indexed-linked Investments operations subsidiary with $20 million, as disclosed in SEC filings. The Fund.com Capital index-linked investment is designed to demonstrate an auditable track record for the EQUITIES Hedge Fund Index, as well as serve as an acquisition entity where Fund.com Capital would acquire other financial services companies.
- EQUITIES is a financial information and media company with operations spanning print, online and event-based productions. The flagship title, EQUITIES Magazine, was launched in March 1951 and for over five decades has reported and uncovered leading growth stories, including some notables; Berkshire Hathaway at $300 and PrePaid Legal at $1. Today, EQUITIES expanded its editorial mandate to include contemporary issues in finance that affect public companies, consciously avoiding non-business current events and lifestyle reporting. EQUITIES is first and foremost the definitive "Investor's Tool."
FNDM's Industry
- FNDM services the finance segment of the business information industry. The United States business information services industry is large and growing with a total market size in 2006 of approximately $46.5 billion according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. FNDM believe there is an increased demand for financial information arising from increasing complexity of investment instruments and that consumers will increasingly rely on the Internet as the principle source of information that they use to access this information.
- The number of individual investors in the United States investing in funds has grown at a significant rate. In 2006 the United States individual investor market consists of approximately 55 million United States households, according to the Investment Company Institute, up from just 4.6 million United States households in 1980.
Growing Demand
- FNDM's target market, individuals with, or considering, an investment in an investment fund, is a multi-trillion dollar industry. As reported by the Investment Company Institute in its 2007 Investment Company Factbook, the United States mutual fund industry was a $10.6 trillion industry in 2006, accounting for 48 percent of the $21.8 trillion in mutual fund assets worldwide.
- Fund.com Inc. believes that many individual investors seek out third-party sources of information to validate the advice they receive. It is FNDM's intention to build as quickly as possible a large community of investors or potential investors and to provide them with a forum where they will find information and data that they have collectively deemed relevant to financial investment decision making.
Revenue Streams
- FNDM will generate online advertising revenue, which includes referral fees for online customer leads. FNDM brings investors and product providers together. FNDM is creating a vertical marketplace available at fund.com and accreditedinvestor.com to increase the opportunities to connect people and businesses. In addition, FNDM will generate revenue by licensing its content for fees. This includes licensing our branded Index to third party product providers, like banks.
Online Advertising Revenue
- Driving visitors to www.fund.com will be critical to generating online advertising revenue. FNDM believes www.fund.com has several competitive advantages in the generation of website traffic, including two key low cost means of generating traffic to www.fund.com, including its affiliation and cross-branding relationship with EQUITIES Magazine, an established financial media company and the URL www.fund.com is a domain name that is broad, easy to remember and highly marketable.
Content Licensing Revenue
- Through its subsidiary, FNDM intends to license the right to use its indexes to third parties who use this content to benchmark their investment products. FNDM will be paid licensing fees. The amount of the licensing fees paid will be variable and tied to a percentage of assets benchmarked to our content. FNDM currently has intellectual property associated with one index from which it will generate licensing income. FNDM intends to develop other content and other licensing agreements.
Advisory Fees
- FNDM is in discussions with and intends to enter into Consulting Agreements to provide advisory services to third party investment product providers. These third party providers have also entered into a License Agreement for FNDM's content. These Consulting Agreements will provide for FMP to assist in establishing investment products that uses its content as an investment benchmark. FNDM intends to generate fees for its consulting services and intends to assist in the growth of assets that are subject to the terms of the Licensing Agreements, which generates licensing fees for FNDM.
Structured Products
- FNDM has established Fund.com Capital, Inc. to make an investment in an index-linked investment product. FNDM intends to negotiate the index-linked product with a third party bank that has entered into a variable rate deposit agreement with FNDM pursuant to which FNDM will earn a variable interest rate. FNDM will be credited monthly by the bank with interest based on the performance of the index.
- Fund.com is establishing itself as a leading destination and brand for financial information.
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