WHAT COMES AFTER the fall?

As the still-feeble U.S. economy stumbles to its feet, some entrepreneurs are applying lessons from the economic crisis to new websites that provide financial information and data. The models are all over the map—as is the information they supply—and most of the sites decline to provide their traffic numbers. But founders have tapped venture capitalists for backing and are now looking for subscribers. One of the most popular models offers the ability to track the investment strategies of pros like Warren Buffett. Another seeks to give individual investors access to the same financial models that institutional money managers use to pick their stocks.

What kind of legs the sites might have is another question—as is exactly how many new businesses are underway. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 171,000 businesses launched in the first quarter of 2009, down more than 20% from 207,000 during the first quarter of 2008. Here, a look at some of the Web’s newest financially-oriented entrants.

1) Hedgeable
Founder: Michael Kane
After watching retail investors, himself included, lose money during the financial meltdown, former analyst Michael Kane spent a lot of time thinking about safer ways to invest money. His solution: Hedgeable.com, a web site that offers investment advice based on changes in the market, rather than standard asset allocation recommendations. Some of the services are free--including ongoing performance and risk reporting and hedging suggestions. For rebalancing recommendations, Hedgeable.com charges a $20 a month fee. Although users currently can’t make actual trades on the site-- they need to sign onto their online brokerage accounts for that—Kane hopes to advance to that stage eventually, and to enlist 10,000 paying members and 250,000 users within a year (he declines to give current traffic numbers). For now, “we’ll manage their portfolios and we’ll answer any investment questions,” says Kane, who invested $40,000 in the start-up.

2) KaChing
Founder: Daniel Carroll
What is the investing strategy of a so-called genius worth? In KaChing.com, former trader Daniel Carroll is betting that people will pay 1.25% of funds managed for access to investment strategies of investors who have passed a test administered by KaChing.com. Upon signing up, users choose one of the site’s 10 pros—currently, they include a bio tech expert, an investor who specializes in growth stocks and Carroll himself. Since launching in October, the experts’ track record has varied from 200% (the bio tech guy) to just 6.4% (Carroll). The fee is less expensive than a traditional domestic equity fund, which charges an average 1.39%. KaChing.com pays the experts 75% of the fees they generate and keeps the balance for the site.

Carroll, who launched the site in October, has raised $10.5 million from investors to fund KaChing.com up. So far, he says he has $4 million under management and 420,000 users. He says the test administered to the advisors is rigorous, but in the case the strategy of an advisor goes awry, or he or she strays from her strategy, the site sends out an alert to investors. “When a lot of people buy mutual funds, they buy the brand; Most of the time, they don’t even know who’s managing their money,” he says.

3) Tracked.com
Founder: Michael Yavonditte
While there are many sources for investors looking for free or cheap information on publically-traded companies, there tends to be is less availability for private firms. At the month-old Tracked.com, users can read-up on the news and activities of any person or company, including those that are privately-held. Free to users, the site also operates as a social network. So users can not only learn that Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, earned $48.42 million in 2008, they can also share that information with their colleagues.

The downside: the information is only as good as Tracked.com’s sources, says founder Michael Yavonditte. “We get information from many, many different places including government sources but don't disclose them all,” says Yavonditte. “Our data is as accurate as the original sources some of which may, from time to time, contain inaccuracies. We encourage our users to notify us of inaccuracies which we try to fix right away.”

Tracked.com is still in beta and won’t launch officially until January or February, but Yavonditte says it is available to users now. He says he has raised approximately $12 million to operate the site, and plans to generate revenue through advertising.

4) Trefis
Founder: Manish Jhunjhunwala
Want to know how much the iPhone contributes to Apple’s stock price? Such information is typically hard to parse, but a new website run by engineers from MIT will try to provide the answers. Dubbed Trefis.com, the site uses interactive modeling tools to allow users to “develop a feel for how relevant a certain driver is to the business,” says Manish Jhunjhunwala, Trefis’ founder.

The site, which is currently free, ultimately will add polls of product experts and company employees to supplement information provided by the interactive modeling tools. When that happens, users will be charged yet-to-be-determined fees.

5) AlphaClone
Founder: Mazin S. Jadallah AlphaClone.com thinks it knows what Warren Buffett is thinking. How? It sifts through public filings of over 200 high-performing institutional investors and hedge funds to track the strategies of investors like Buffett and Robert Kemp—and charges subscribers between $29.95 and $99.95 a month for access to the information or “clone.” (To ensure that a new portfolio based on the stock ideas of one or more fund managers is worthwhile, AlphaClone back-tests the so-called clones.)

Like Hedgeable.com, AlphaClone, currently doesn’t have the capability to allow investors to trade on its platform, but the site is registering with the SEC to make that possible. Once investors are able to trade on the actual site, AlphaClone will charge those who purchase investments through the site an asset-based fee of 1% to 1.5%. Mazin Jadallah, the site’s founder, declines to say exactly how many users the site has, he says it is in the thousands, with hundreds paying for information.

6) Name:SharesPost
Founder: Greg Brogger
Back in the heyday of initial public offerings, companies often managed to go from hanging out a shingle to IPO in ten years or less—Google, for example, took six. But as that market has dried up, the length of time to create a public company has stretched out to 11 or 12 years, says Greg Brogger, a former securities attorney. Since most venture capital funds have 10-year terms, according to Brogger, the gap between investment and return is sometimes tying up VC funds. With Sharepost.com, Brogger is seeking to capitalize on what he calls “a fundamental mismatch” between venture capital and start-ups. The site, which launched in June, allows investors accredited by the SEC to buy and sell each others’ shares, which theoretically frees up VC funds to be applied elsewhere.

Brogger put $500,000 of his own money into sharespost.com and received the same amount from an investment group. To buy or sell, users pay a monthly subscription fee of $34. Just reading the site is free. Brogger projects he will have about 11,000 subscribers by the end of the year.

—Write to Diana Ransom at dransom@smartmoney.com

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