经济学人59:不同寻常的风险投资模式能够起飞吗?

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　　商业

　　Ad space for equity¹

　　为股票做广告

　　Air for shares

　　股票时间

　　Could an unusual venture-capital model be taking off?

　　一项不同寻常的风险投资模式能够起飞吗？

　　IN AMERICA, venture capital is plentiful².Not so elsewhere.

　　美国风险资金十分丰富，但是并非所有地方都是这样。

　　In Europe, a handful of companies are helping³ struggling start-ups with an unusual model: investing advertising⁴ space in them instead of money.

　　在欧洲，一些公司正以非同寻常的模式帮助那些挣扎的新成立的公司：投资广告版面而非直接投钱。

　　Start-ups usually get their initial seed funding-a few tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars-from family or friends.

　　新成立的公司通常从家人或朋友那里获得初始的种子资金，通常是数万或数十万美元。

　　A venture-capital firm won't step in until the firm is ready to raise maybe ten times that amount.

　　只有公司筹集到了数百万的资金时，风险投资才会介入。

　　In America, intermediate sums tend to come from informal "angel investors⁵", typically entrepreneurs who have made a decent bit of money from their own start-ups and want to invest some in projects they like.

　　在美国，过渡的资金通常来自于非正式的天使投资者，特别是由新成立的公司发家且希望投资一些中意项目的企业家。

　　But outside America's technology hubs, such people are rare.

　　但是在美国科技中心之外，这样的人少之又少。

　　However, start-ups of that size are often making their first baby steps into the market and need publicity⁶.

　　然而，这样规模的新成立的公司通常会迈着婴儿步进入市场并需要广告宣传。

　　Aggregate⁷ Media Funds, a Swedish firm started in 2002, pools excess advertising space provided by 15 Swedish media companies that are shareholders⁸ in the fund, and gives it to start-ups in return for an equity stake (it also plans their marketing⁹ for them).

　　2002年成立的瑞典媒体公司媒体公基金集合了15家瑞典媒体提供的广告版面，并且以交换股权的形式给予新成立的公司。（该公司还会为他们做市场规划。）这15家媒体都是该基金的股东。

　　If the firms do well, they buy back the equity in cash, which goes to the shareholders, with a cut for the fund.

　　如果公司运作良好，他们就会用现金买回股权给予股东，并给基金一份利润。

　　Patrik Rosen, Aggregate's boss, says it has made some 120 investments-in both start-ups and established firms that want to advertise a new product or a stock offering-and completed around 80 "exits", though he won't disclose how much money has been made.

　　公基金的老板帕特里克?罗森表示给公司已经做大约120笔投资，都是投在需要为新产品或发行股票的新成立的公司或已成型的公司，并完成了大概80个公司的"退市"，但是他并不会透露赚了多少钱。

　　Similar models have taken hold in Germany.

　　德国也兴起了同样的模式。

　　ProSiebenSat.1, a television company, has been offering other firms advertising in return for equity or revenue shares since 2009, and reported making more than

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