Falfurrias Capital Partners, Industry Dive Seal Growth Partnership

Industry Dive, one of the most successful independently owned B2B media companies, announced this week that Charlotte-based PE firm Falfurrias Capital Partners will acquire a majority equity. The partnership combines the unique investment model of Falfurrias with the 19 verticals and 7 million-plus audience of Industry Dive. 

"Industry Dive's partnership with Falfurrias comes at just the right moment, when we are ready to scale our B2B journalism, business intelligence, and sales and marketing products to new audiences and new industries," said Sean Griffey (pictured), who will continue as CEO. "We wanted growth partners who were true managers, builders, and advisors, not only financial supporters, and we've absolutely found that in Falfurrias."

Founded in 2012 and based in Washington, D.C., Industry Dive provides premium business news, original analysis and other information products and services to verticals ranging from banking and supply chain to retail and waste. 

Griffey's fellow co-founders Ryan Willumson, chief revenue officer, and Eli Dickinson, chief technology officer, will also continue in their roles. Falfurrias Capital Partners partner Joe Price and principal Geordie Pierson will join the Industry Dive board.

Sean Griffey will be an opening-day keynote at our upcoming Business Information & Media Summit (BIMS), Nov. 11-13 in Hollywood, Fla.

Pro Farmer Finishes Another Successful Crop Tour

More than 125 scouts, including farmers, agribusiness experts, media, government and financial firm representatives from 12 countries participated in the 2019 Pro Farmer Midwest Crop Tour. Field scouts gathered crop samples across portions of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio and South Dakota. Collectively, these states account for 70% of U.S. corn production.

Hear more from Joe May, Pro Farmer's marketing director, at BIMS!

FiscalNote Lands a Deal in South Korea 

Fast-growing, Washington, D.C.-based government regulatory intelligence company FiscalNote Inc. is expanding its client base in Asia.

Reported the Washington Business Journal: "The 6-year-old business, which provides analysis of regulatory reports and legislation, has several platforms for advocacy products, newsrooms and professional tools. Two of its media services, CQ and Roll Call, now deliver financial technology services to South Korea's branch of CoinDesk.

"CoinDesk Korea is a content platform specializing in blockchain and cryptocurrency information. With this international distribution partnership, CQ and Roll Call will provide select coverage of U.S. regulation on the development and use of blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies."

Also hear more from Gerald Yao, chief strategy officer for FiscalNote, at BIMS!

GrantScape Adds Over $110 Trillion in Awards Data and Opens the Door for New Data Licensing Opportunities 

Thompson Grants, a division of Columbia Books & Information Services, announced over the summer that it has completed a significant expansion to its grant-finding database, GrantScape, by incorporating awards data from IRS Form 990 financial data sets and USAspending.gov. This process has added over 34 million award records and over 2 million unique recipients, representing $250 billion in private awards funding and $110 trillion in federal awards funding.

This new data, available now for direct data licensing, creates a powerful tool for those searching for new grants to better understand the grants landscape and their place in it. Rather than searching for grants opportunities that a user may be eligible for, querying the complete set of grants awards allows users to find lookalike recipients and navigate the grants landscape from a completely new perspective.

"This was a complex project and I'm proud of the work the team has done to bring this additional data into GrantScape," said Julie Rachlin, managing director of Thompson Grants.

To read more about GrantScape, see this past SIPAlert Daily column.

Excellent Blog on Change From Lessiter Media 

Kim Schmidt, executive editor of Lessiter Media's Farm Equipment and the host of their Ag Equipment Intelligence's On The Record, recently wrote an excellent blog on Finding Your Champions of Change. Here's an excerpt:

"Here at Lessiter Media (the publisher of Farm Equipment), we recently began using a project management program across the board. It doesn't matter how long you've been at the company or what your title is, we're all expected to use the program — from owners down to interns, and everyone in between. We've got a team of 3 who have been tasked with keeping the rest of us on track with learning and using the very new program.

"Champions of the program have emerged naturally (as have some doubters), but watching how much more smoothly projects for the champions are going now that things are streamlined and all in one place is refreshing and encouraging. We're a long way from having the change fully embraced, but we now have a few champions who can spread the excitement and success of the program."

Read the entire column here.

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Ronn Levine began his career as a reporter for The Washington Post and has won numerous writing and publications awards since. Most recently, he spent 12 years at the Newspaper Association of America covering a variety of topics before joining SIPA in 2009 and SIIA in 2013 as editorial director…