Posts Tagged ‘co:America-Online’
GoFish, a video-sharing site much like YouTube, has acquired another video site, Bolt, to save that company from lawsuits that threatened to sink it.
The $30 million transaction, first reported by the NYT, is reportedly being used by New York’s Bolt to pay a settlement of “several million dollars” to Universal Music Group, which had sued Bolt for copyright infringement. (See merger filing here)
Thus ends the topsy-turvy ride of Bolt, the company started in 1996 to target teenagers, and once backed by investors like Highland Capital, America Online, and Oak Investment with more than $66 million. It had even filed to go public in December 1999, with only $4 million in revenue and no profit — just as the dot-com meltdown began. It was forced to pull its IPO.
So co-founder and chief exec Aaron Cohen and co-founder Lou Kerner bought the company back from investors in 2004. Which is why Cohen tells the Times: “This deal is economically painful to Bolt shareholders…It is setting a precedent that companies that violate copyright at minimum risk litigation.”
Bolt apparently had revenue of $7 million by the end of last year. It had 5.3 million users in the U.S, according to ComScore Media Metrix.
GoFish, a two year old San Francisco company, went public last year through a reverse merger, so called because it merged with company that was already publicly traded but had no operations. GoFish has little, if any revenue, but has a market value of $134 million. GoFish.com had 1.4 million users in December.
Cohen and Bolt president Jay Gould are now involved with a project, called WikiYou, which has received seed funding from First Round Capital and Mayfield Fund, reports NewTeeVee.
Top Stories
- The Huffington Post confirms $25M third round
- A new, elaborate $20 billion deal for ...
- Mobile ad spending rises as iPhone effect ...
- Joost is loosed on the iPhone. Looks ...
- Breaking: Google News doesn't break tech news
Recent Guest Columnists
- Javier Rojas
The art of the bootstrap - Clifford Reid
The genomic frontier: Personalized medicine in action - Bruce Cleveland
Double down? Spin in? New questions for a new economy
Job Board
- Regional Vice President of Sales
at Marketing Technology Solutions (Jersey City, NJ) - Interactive Production Designer
at EyeWonder, Inc (233 Peachtree Street Atlanta, GA 30303) - Alliance Marketing Consultant BP
at Sun Microsystems (MENLO PARK, CA) - More Jobs » | Post a Job »
Links
Venturebeat Writers
- Matt Marshall, Editor-in-Chief
- Dean Takahashi, Lead Writer, DigitalMedia
- Eric Eldon, Editor, DigitalMedia
- MG Siegler, Writer, DigitalMedia
- Anthony Ha, Writer, VentureBeat
- Chris Morrison, Writer, CleanTech
- For advertising, contact .
- Log in