经济学人下载:互联网商业,又一轮的数字淘金热

Thanks to the boom’s second driving force, finance, these companies have no shortage of eager backers. Although too small to interest many venture-capital firms, they are being fought over by wealthy individual investors, or “angels” in the venture industry’s jargon. Many of these financiers made their fortunes during the 1990s bubble and are eager to put their know-how and cash behind today’s tiny companies.

金融，这一轮勃发的次要的驱动力是值得感谢的，这些公司与急切的赌徒们比起来毫不逊色。虽然（新兴企业）小到无法引起太多风险资本公司的兴趣，但他们靠着富有的私人投资家，或者就是受到风险工业的行话说的“天使”的争夺。这些金融家们中的许多人，在20世纪90年代的泡沫中赚取了他们的财富，急切的要将他们那知根知底的本事和现金放到到今天还很微小的公司背后。

Some “super angels”, such as Aydin Senkut, a former Google employee who runs Felicis Ventures, and Mike Maples, a software entrepreneur who oversees a firm called Floodgate, are occasionally making bets comparable to those of conventional venture funds, which gather and invest money from a wide range of institutional investors. Individual investments of up to $1m are not uncommon. Sometimes angels are clubbing together to provide young firms with even larger sums.

有些“超级天使”，他们偶尔作出与从一些列宽阔的机构投资者进行归集和投资的传统风险基金相匹敌赌注。比如，作为前谷歌雇员，运营Felicis Ventures和Mike Maples这2家公司的软件实业家Aydin Senkut，他就看中一家名为Floodgate的公司。个人投资者上个$100万美元也不是个稀罕事。有时候天使们抱作一团，从而为年轻公司提供更大总额的投资。

Their cumulative impact is staggering. According to the Centre for Venture Research at the University of New Hampshire, angel investors in America pumped about $20 billion into young firms last year, up from $17.6 billion in 2009. That is not far off the $22 billion that America’s National Venture Capital Association says its members invested in 2010. Much of the angels’ money has gone to consumer-internet firms and makers of software apps.

这些天使们总合后的冲击力令人吃惊。据新汉末谢尔大学（University of New Hampshire）的风险研究中心（Centre for Venture Research），去年，天使投资者向年轻公司的注资，从2009年的$176亿上升到了约$200亿美元。比起美国风险资本联合会（America’s National Venture Capital Association）所称的，其成员在2010年投资的$220亿美元，这与之相去不远。天使投资中更多的资金流入了消费者—互联网公司和应用软件制作商。

The financing of more mature tech start-ups has also changed. Elite venture-capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers have raised billions of dollars in new funds in the past year or so. Some of this money has been pumped into “late-stage” investments (eg, in Twitter and Skype), allowing companies to remain private and independent for longer than used to be the norm.

对更为成熟的科技新兴企业的进行的金融行为已经改变。在去年前后的时刻，像Andreessen Horowitz和Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers这样的Elite风险—资本公司，从新基金上募集到数十亿美元。这些资金有一部分被注入到“最终阶段”投资（例如，推特（Twitter）和Skype），比起以前被视作是普遍的，允许公司在更长的时间里保持更多的私有化和独立性。