Hecta Media, the British Virgin Islands-registered company, that calls itself a web consolidator, floated yesterday on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), hoping to raise cash that it plans to invest in niche content sites and domain names throughout the US, UK, and Europe (via A:C Europe). The plan is to eventually create a portfolio of “high-traffic web sites,” organised along vertical markets that will earn money through search and display advertising. Its typical investment target is “a simple, profitable business with few employees and positive cash flow”. Their strategy of raising money directly through the markets on a sole idea recalls the dubious investment vehicles that surfaced—and flopped—during the first web boom.

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Owners of Hecta said, however, that current market conditions were providing good opportunities for investment. Management includes Ceo Clark Landry, and Chairman Fred Krueger, co-founders of Traffic Marketplace, an online advertising network that ended up in Vivendi (EPA: VIV) Universal’s stable and Santa Monica Networks, a second advertisement network, which was sold to search engine marketing company Kanoodle in 2005. The company has already raised £4.67 million through the broker Beaumont Cornish.