BetaKit and Sprouter, two of Canada’s leading startup resources, are now part of the Financial Post. As of March 22, both Sprouter.com and BetaKit.com redirected to FP Startups, a long-standing section of the Financial Post dedicated to reporting on young technology businesses.
The editorial merger comes two years after Financial Post parent Postmedia acquired Sprouter, a community dedicated to connecting startup founders with established entrepreneurs, for an undisclosed sum in an eleventh- hour sale. After purchasing Sprouter for its active audience and deep archive of advice from successful founders/businesspeople, Postmedia struggled to draw revenue from the business.
National Post/Financial Post publisher Douglas Kelly said Sprouter and BetaKit (a subsidiary property launched in February 2012 that reported on emerging technologies) were ultimately not able to drive enough revenue for the company to justify sustaining them as separate brands.
As the Financial Post incorporates some Sprouter and BetaKit assets, it will phase out both brands. “Within that space we had the BetaKit brand, the Sprouter brand and the [FP] Startup brand. The decision by Postmedia was that they were better to put the brands and audiences under one name,” Kelly said.
Sprouter’s database of advice from entrepreneurs (its main offering) will soon be available through Financial Post, Kelly said, though the large size of the database will make its transfer a time-consuming process. No decision has been made about the future of BetaKit Insights, a subscription-based trend report aimed at marketers and ad agencies.
Though BetaKit had a small staff, the site punched well above its weight and was #53 on the Techmeme leaderboard (which tracks traffic to sites that cover technology) on its final day as a publication – well ahead of larger competitors like Businessweek and The Guardian.
Neither Sprouter founder Sarah Prevette nor BetaKit managing editor Erin Bury (one of Marketing’s Top 30 Under 30) will continue on with Postmedia, though Bury will continue to contribute to the Financial Post as a columnist. Prevette had left the company in January, prior to the merger.
