Our Industry

We target the finance segment of the business information services industry, a large and growing sector which, in 2006, had a total market size of approximately $46.5 billion, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. We believe that the increasing complexity of investment instruments will continue to fuel demand for financial information, and that investors’ reliance on the Internet as their principle source of such information will grow in proportion to that demand.

According to the Investment Company Institute, in 2006 the United States individual investor market comprised approximately 55 million households, up from just 4.6 million households in 1980. Over that same period, the number of individuals in the United States invested in funds has grown in approximate proportion. As an asset class, funds have the broadest appeal to investors. For these reasons, our site focuses directly on funds, presenting a range of fund information to consumers in an approachable, easy-to-understand style, and utilizing an appealing, easily navigable user interface.

Growing Demand

Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars continue to flow into investment funds of all kinds. As reported by the Investment Company Institute in its 2007 Factbook, the United States mutual fund industry grew to $10.6 trillion in 2006, accounting for 48 percent of the $21.8 trillion global mutual fund total. But while other large financial services sectors like banking, mortgages and credit cards have been successfully served by online companies such as Bankrate.com, Lendingtree.com and Creditcards.com, the fund industry has lacked similar vertically-focused online sites. Third party distribution of funds has largely been a function of financial advisors who necessarily employ relatively inefficient marketing methods, such as in-person client meetings. It’s our belief that Fund.com will provide a new kind of distribution to an audience that will grow even larger each year.

Vertical Marketplace

In response to consumer demand for detailed and accessible information covering specific topics, the internet has seen an increase in the popularity of vertical online marketplaces. Vertical marketplaces provide visitors with the tools to research, compare and learn about products and services in specific business sectors. They can deliver great comprehensiveness, relevance, and efficiency. Content typically focuses on specific niches, which attracts targeted audiences, and translates into higher quality leads and more focused audiences for advertisers. Fund.com will be such a vertical marketplace. By focusing on funds we will enter the marketplace with a natural advantage over more general financial information websites. We will be able to go deeper and present far more structured information on individual funds and the fund industry as a whole, than general financial websites. Fund companies and their products will gain significant exposure to qualified buyers, and those buyers will often be closer to making a purchase decision than those searching for fund information on more generic financial sites.

In sum, we’re confident that the following factors will be key to making www.fund.com successful as a vertical marketplace:

• Aggregation of a wide range of fund related content
• Ease of use and clarity of communication
• Unbiased information building user trust that Fund.com puts investors’ interests first
• Relevant, accessible, in-depth educational content.