Nimbus Looking To Raise $140 Million: Report; Nimbus Mobile?

With less than two years left for their $612.18 million deal with the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) to expire, Nimbus is looking to sell 26 percent stake, reports the Economic Times. Nimbus has struck a four year deal with the BCCI, for rights to 23 Test matches, 56 One Day Internationals and 72 days of domestic cricket, to be held between March 1, 2006 and March 31, 2010. As per the report, Nimbus is expecting over $140 million for this stake.

Last year, Nimbus had raised $125 million from 31, Cisco and Oman International Fund, though just a few months later, there were reports last year that investors were looking to exit the company. Other investors include Deutsche Bank and Americorp Ventures.

Do note that Nimbus also has the Internet and Mobile rights for the English Premier League for 80 countries, till 2010, which they have been reselling. However, it’s important to remember that they do not have the rights for the successful Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise - that’s with competitor MultiScreen Media (Sony). Question is - what does Nimbus have to offer investors, post 2010?

On the digital front, Nimbus launched Cricket, Film and Home Video sites earlier this year. The 3i site mentions “Nimbus Mobile”, which I’ve never heard of. Any idea of what they do?

Website For Dare, CyberMedia’s Magazine For Entrepreneurs, Goes Live

Sometime early this month, the website for CyberMedia’s Dare, the magazine for entrepreneurs, went live.

The most interesting element of the site is the lead story by Group Editor Krishna Kumar - “Who will be the next manufacturing superpower“, not because of the topic, but because Dare is offering its readers the opportunity to complete the cover story with their opinion, and win a Blackberry. So far, the story has received 40 comments - some of them very, very long. It will be interesting to see if Dare makes a habit of this - of driving readers from its highly regarded magazine (many entrepreneurs I know read it), cross-media to its website.

Content discovery is also being encouraged - the index page displays tags, the latest comments, latest blog entries, stories from different sections of the site. It appears to be a Joomla based site (correct me if I’m wrong).

Dare’s website has taken a lot time to launch - while the magazine itself was launched sometime in October last year, visitors to the site Dare.co.in were subjected to a “Coming Soon” notice over the next many months.

The content on the site is divided along four categories - Opportunities, People, Strategy and Funding, and the site also features blogs. Much of the content on the website is magazine content, and frankly, if there aren’t daily updates, repeat usage will be an issue.

Some suggestions

I’d put blogs right up there, in the proverbial “first fold”, and at least have daily updates. A magazine faces a key issue online - its content is updated weekly, fortnightly or monthly, while users online expect daily updates; in some cases, many times a day. The importance of recency cannot be understated - so either have content that is updated often, or offer users interactivity. Some suggestions:

– Adding relevant wire stories to the site: Digital Today did this for its magazines Business Today and India Today. Editorial selection is of great importance here, since irrelevant or badly written stories (many of those on the wires) will hurt the brand.
– Adding blogs that are updated frequently, and have an editorial mandate: Dare does have blogs, but they aren’t being updated frequently enough, and they don’t appear to have finalized the editorial mandate for the blogs yet. I quite like what Mint has done with its blogs, in terms of content.
– Linking out/Aggregating: I’ve said this before - content is a service. In the b2b space that we are in, you’re providing your readers with inputs that help them make better decisions. In that case, if you’re pointing them towards articles and stories that could be of use to them - why not? Would it hurt Dare to link to a site like VCCircle, which has excellent, relevant content? I don’t think any mainstream publications in India are linking out.
– A discussion forum: forums are grossly underrated, but if you get the right kind of community discussing issues, a site can take on a life of its own. Or even…imagine enabling a live chat session for selected entrepreneurs with mentors or VCs

What do you think Dare should do to increase interactivity?

“There Are Two Currencies For Advertising - Cash And Treaties; We’re Not Buying To Sell” - S. Sivakumar, CEO Designate, Times Private Treaties

Updated Below

Bennett & Coleman & Co Ltd (BCCL), the largest media group in India, is considered a pioneer of the Private Treaties model, taking equity in ventures in exchange for advertising inventory. The Times Private Treaties Portfolio has between 175-200 companies, some of them listed on the bourses. The apparent success of this model has led other media companies, including HT Media, Network18, NDTV, Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Jagran to set up their own Private Treaties division.

However, some questions have been raised about whether editorial content is a part of the Treaties deal; Sucheta Dalal had quoted an email from Economic Times editor Rahul Joshi, which mentions editorial “support” to treaties clients. There is also the issue of BCCL bloating valuations of companies, and investing in several companies in the same segment. In a candid interview with Medianama.com, S. Sivakumar, Principal Secretary and CEO Designate of Times Private Treaties, spoke about these issues, and outlined the investment philosophy behind the Private Treaties model.

Read the entire transcript here.

Excerpts from the 34 minute long interview:

On Valuation Of Deals
We don’t have to value the deal, because…there’s a rate card for each of our media vehicles, and he (the entrepreneur) makes a plan - over the next 3-5 years - because brand building is a long term initiative. We have media planners and advertising and branding promotions as value-add - who support by defining target group, SEC, make an assessment and make out a plan. That determines the deal size. A cash client pays in the space of 60 days. In case of a treaty client, I hope to get the payment when the company gets listed. It’s an event that has at least a 3 year time-span. This (Treaties) actually helps an entrepreneur leverage the strength of BCCL without straining his balance sheet from a cash-flow point of view.

On Bloated Valuations
Essentially it is the company that expects the next round to come at a similar view on valuation. The onus is clearly on the entrepreneur.

On Value, Competitive Advantage (And Lack Of)
Q. Let me take the example of Travel space, where you have invested in TravelMasti, TravelChacha, Ezeego1, TravelGuru and HolidayIQ. Where is the competitive advantage established by you since they’re competing with each other?
Very good point. Actually it’s very simple: the whole purpose of advertising is to bring out differentiation. For each of them there is a clear differentiation. For TravelGuru, his whole USP is the strength in the hotel space. Each one has a differentiation. To a layman, everything appears the same. That USP is brought out through the use of a powerful medium as ours.
Q. So you’re giving them space, and how they use the space is their problem?
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