GE Audio & Video: Podcasts, Stream GE, On Demand
skip to main contentskip to secondary navigationClick on any phrase to jump to that point in the video.
[[Peacock Equity: Investing in next-generation media]]
[[Michael Chen - President & CEO, Media Communications & Entertainment, GE Capital]]
[I'm Michael Chen, President and CEO of Media Communications and Entertainment]
[for GE Capital, and I'm one of the sponsors of the Peacock Equity Fund,]
[which is a joint venture between my team and NBC Universal]
[where we invest in digital media companies in the venture capital space.]
[The Peacock Equity Fund was started about two years ago]
[as a vision between the NBC Universal executives and GE Capital]
[about investing in venture capital investments in the digital media space.]
[[Lauren Zalasnick - Women and LIfestyle Entertainment Networks, NBC Universal]]
[It's a $250 million fund set up to provide Series B or Round 2 financing]
[to essentially start-up companies mostly in the new media and digital space.]
[And in each case, the Peacock Fund would assess the growth potential]
[of that company, come to the operators of NBC Universal,]
[and see if there is a direct fit, a direct value, into one of our businesses,]
[and that way have a mutual, a co-creation of value.]
[The question has always been, are you trading analog dollars for digital dimes?]
[And we're trying to figure out, how do you break the mold?]
[How do you invest in digital media and make money in that space?]
[What we're trying to do with the Peacock Equity Fund]
[is around making one big bet by buying one company.]
[We're making minority, non-control investments,]
[so generally less than 20% of the company,]
[that we believe has a hope of being successful.]
[But rather than putting all our chips on one company,]
[by being able to spread it around to 8, 9, 10 different companies as we have done now,]
[it gives us the opportunity to learn much more about different industries and different sectors.]
[And we invest in four primary sectors. ]
[One is advertising, another is content, third is gaming, and the final one is technology.]
[The Peacock Fund made a key investment in the terrific blogging community's]
[set of websites called BlogHer.]
[We have a carefully curated community of the best women's blogs in the country,]
[and the BlogHer investment has allowed strategic growth at the BlogHer Company]
[to increase their profitability across their business.]
[I go on BlogHer through iVillage pretty much every day,]
[like most of the women who use BlogHer.]
[It's engaging, you want to get deep into discussion and dialogue]
[with all of the affinity groups and content areas that they're talking about,]
[and it's a terrific community of like-minded women across hundreds,]
[if not thousands, of key content areas.]
[A lot of these companies are not only recession proof,]
[because they've grown the business over the last two years despite the economy,]
[but also of all the changes in media with DVR, where people aren't watching TV at 8:00--]
[they're DVRing and saying, "I'm going to watch it when I want to watch it."]
[Our investment is in a platform when you interact with it when you want to,]
[It's not like, "Hey, you've got to come at 8:00 and play this game or you're missing it."]
[It's the ability of getting the user to get fully engaged and immersed]
[in the content of their choice.]
[The Peacock Equity Fund is really, in my view, ]
[an extension of everything that NBC Universal does.]
[It's investing in entertainment, it's investing in media,]
[it's investing in the future of where NBC Universal is headed.]
[And so the average person on the street can relate to what we do ]
[in the Peacock Equity Fund because it is mainstream.]
[It's mainstream media, it's linked to one of the most exciting TV broadcasting stations,]
[and it's linked to the future of how we're going to communicate with each other.]
[When you look at our portfolio companies and what we invest in,]
[it gives you a clue of where we think NBC Universal is headed in the future as well.]
