Author: Jevon MacDonald

The Mark, a community contributed online op-ed magazine, has secured a round of angel financing from David Ceolin, former CEO of Digital Cement; Jordan Banks, former CEO of JumpTV and former managing director of eBay Canada; and Arlene Dickinson, CEO of Venture Communications and co-host of CBC’s The Dragon’s Den.

This all-star line up of angel investors have provided capital so the Toronto based startup can add hundreds of new contributors, further develop the platform, and build content distribution partnerships. The company was founded by Jeff Anders, who saw the news media landscape in Canada being redrawn and launched the site to provide Canadians with a forum for news, commentary, and debate.

The Mark is founded on the idea that thousands of credible Canadians have important things to say but cannot reach a national audience. Many want to publish their ideas but have no forum in which to do so. Two million Canadians live abroad and have a deep understanding of the countries and organizations within which they live and work, and yet no publication collects and shares their insights. For these great Canadians, here and abroad, The Mark will be their platform.

At its core The Mark is a national movement to record Canadian ideas and propel the people behind them. It is a collection of thoughts and a tool for facilitating interdisciplinary dialogue and debate between outstanding Canadians.

The Mark recruits contributors using two criteria: professional credibility and a connection to Canada. We do not select contributors based on how they vote, where they live, or what language they prefer, and we certainly don’t dictate what they write. The result is a community of thinkers and doers that reflects all points of view on politics, business, science and technology, and the arts. Though we encourage contributors to express their bias, The Mark is not anchored to any one ideology itself. You think, we curate.

Instead of focusing on facts, The Mark emphasizes analysis. What are the implications of the facts? What trends are emerging? Who are the personalities behind the headlines? What should be done? The Mark’s expert contributors are on the ground making the decisions that ultimately become news; they are in a better position than anyone to answer these questions. The value is in the analysis: it’s not what you know, it’s what you think about what you know.

The Mark is a library that sheds light on the dusty old question of what it means to be Canadian. It reveals an underplayed side of the Canadian identity: innovative, creative, opinionated and proud to express it, ambitious, and driven to the far corners of the earth to make a difference.

While obvious comparisons could be made to Now Public or The Huffington Post, since The Mark is focused on reaching Canadians, to size the market opportunity perhaps the closest analogues are sites operated by the likes of The Globe and Mail and The National Post.

To compete with these established brands The Mark is focusing on amassing a collection of influential individuals to contribute opinion pieces. Compared to major newspapers, The Mark has a far more efficient system for creating and delivering content, having cut out cost centers like labour (35% of revenue) and newsprint (25% of revenue). And so the assault on newspapers continues.

This financing provides further proof capital is coming back online in 2010. It is shaping up to be an exciting year with plenty of room for commentary on… The Mark.

Having learned the ropes as Directors of Sales at Sandvine, cofounders Michael Ho and Nicolas St-Pierre set out to develop technology enabling the delivery of hyperlocal geo-targeted online advertising.

With a major pilot customer signed on and patent-pending privacy architecture, Bering Media has now secured Series A financing from Tech Capital, GrowthWorks Commercialization Fund, and the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund.

Congratulations to the Bering Media team on the raise as well as Tech Capital for successfully bringing in the OETF on this deal, the first co-investment from the $250M fund.