Amp’d Mobile purchased by United Systems Access
United Systems Access will purchase bankrupt mobile entertainment company Amp’d Mobile, letting more than 100,000 customers keep their service if they make the jump to the Main-based company.
The Los Angeles Times has the story here.
United Systems’ Prexar Mobile will provide service. Amp’d will also get a 25 percent stake in Prexar, but will be paid according to how many of its customers actually switch.
Amp’d Mobile asset list *not* full of porn
Sorry folks, we made a big mistake on this one.
This was originally a story about the asset list of bankrupt mobile entertainment network Amp’d Mobile, and how it included several pages of porn titles. A source, reliable in the past, had sent us a list and pointed us to what he said were pages and pages of porn on Amp’d Mobile’s assets list. We glanced at it: The titles included things like “Doggy Style,”… Continue Reading
Amp’d shuts down wireless network, amid debate to open spectrum
Amp’d Mobile will close its service and sell its assets.
We’ve written enough about this company. It is badly run, and so its difficult to draw lessons on what it means for MVNOs, or networks that lease infrastructure from the big carriers. But its difficult to avoid the conclusion they don’t work very well. It follows ESPN’s MVNO failure last year. The carriers have too much power and little interest in letting upstarts succeed.
That hampers… Continue Reading
What were they thinking? Amp’d Mobile’s mad credit strategy
Amp’d Mobile, the hard-charging mobile content company that raised $360 million only to burn through it all and crash into bankruptcy, continues to surprise.
We’re now hearing from people familiar with Amp’d strategy that its mistake was to change its credit check policy, in a foolhardy effort to boost subscribers. The company’s founder chief executive, Peter Adderton, known for dashing in and out of Los Angeles with a helicopter, searched his business for bottlenecks to the… Continue Reading
Roundup: Nextag, ThisNext, Amp’d, Lala, Ask3D and much more
(Updated) Here’s the latest action, catching up for the past two days:
Boring shopping Web sites attract interest — There are so many shopping search engines, we’ve given up trying to count. And yet investors remain interested. Santa Monica, Calif.’s ThisNext, a social shopping Web site, has raised a round of venture debt Western Technology. It lets people share and recommend products with friends. This comes after rumors that private equity firm Providence Equity Partners is buying… Continue Reading
Amp’d Mobile files for banktrupcy
Amp’d Mobile, a Los Angeles based mobile provider, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after falling into debt and not being able to raise more cash to cover it.
This is a spectacular crash because the young company — which offers mobile entertainment targeted to young people — swallowed more than $360 million in venture backing. To raise so much cash was risky — as we’d pointed out back in March, when Amp’d had raised… Continue Reading
Roundup: Ooyala to launch, Google gobbles Greenborder and more
Here’s the latest action:
Ooyala, secretive ex-Google company, about to launch — The Mountain View, Calif. company, founded by ex-Google engineers and product managers, is secretive but says it delivers a high-quality, interactive, video experience, and is a couple of months away from launch. Sean Knapp, a co-founder, formerly led Google’s user interface team for web and image search. Bismarck Lepe, also from Google, and another of the three co-founders, told VentureBeat the company wants to stay… Continue Reading
Roundup: Apple TV a hit, YouTube killer, Google PPA, Wink & more
Updated
Apple TV is a hit — According to early accounts, at least.
YouTube killer? — [Update: This has been confirmed.] Rumors have existed for some time about collusion among the big-media players to challenge YouTube, the king of video sharing. Now the LA Times reports that News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to announce as soon as today that they’re building an online video site “stocked with TV shows and movies, plus clips that users can modify and… Continue Reading
Amp’d Mobile raises whopping $107M fifth round of financing
Amp’d Mobile, a Los Angeles based company that operates its own mobile network offering entertainment content to young people, has raised $107 million more in a fifth round of capital, according to a regulatory filing cited by VentureWire (sub required).
Amp’d Mobile is a so-called “mobile virtual network operator,” because it does not license its own spectrum, but resells services using the network of other mobile phone operators. This is a tough market to play in,… Continue Reading