The Digital Publishing and tech industry has no shortage of startups in the e-reader and tablet world. New companies break onto the scene on the regular basis. Some fade into obscurity and some hope to cash in on popular trends. According to a recent report, out of the the 2,277 companies surveyed, 76% of them were totally self-financed before being acquired by larger companies.
It was once often thought that when a company received investment from an Angel, VC, or other avenue, it was a testament to all of the hard work involved by the founders. It basically provides validation that other people think your company or business is worthy of their time and equity. It is fairly clear in the general digital tech industry that companies for the most part are going it alone.
Most Digital Publishing companies and others who focus on the e-reader, e-paper and tablet scene are based either in New York or California. This is mainly because this is where the majority of seed capital and VC capital is at. The report states that 455 acquired companies were based in California and 138 were in New York. Geographically, the rest tend to taper off, so if you are a young startup, there are only two places to really be. Almost every single mainstream digital company has their base of operations in San Fran, Silicon Valley, or New York.
If you are a young startup, or even an established business, don’t get jaded and start to feel banal about your company if people are begging to give you money. The statistics don’t lie, and mostly everyone who gets bought out were entirely self-financed.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
