NetPack Lands Backing; Economy Boosts eJets.com’s Take-Off
The BigFNI.com, a Laguna Niguel firm with ties to troubled online retailer TheBigStore.com, is being touched by an angel.
The company announced that former Ford Motor Co. chairman and CEO Harold “Red” Poling has agreed to invest an undisclosed amount of funding in an angel round that was scheduled to close in September. He also will help the firm find venture capital and the right investment banker.
“I believe in this company,” he said.
Poling, who was Ford’s chairman and chief executive from 1990 until his retirement in 1994, will join BigFNI’s board of directors, a coup for the tiny startup.
The year-old company wants to provide a range of financial and insurance services online, including credit cards, mortgages, auto loans and insurance policies.
Poling earned Automotive Industries magazine’s “Man of the Year” honors in 1988. In 1993, he won the Automotive Hall of Fame’s “Leader of the Year” award as well as the Albert Schweitzer Leadership award. And in October, he was inducted to the Automotive Hall of Fame.
BigFNI has a marketing partnership with TheBigHub.com, a San Antonio firm with Orange County operations that manages or promotes a network of Web sites. One of those sites is embattled online retailer TheBigStore.com, which is being forced into bankruptcy by supplier Ingram Micro Inc.
BigFNI officials have since distanced themselves from TheBigStore and TheBigHub.
For more: www.thebigfni.com
Packing It In
NetPack Inc., the tiny Irvine company that hopes to launch a chain of kiosks hawking software, has received an undisclosed investment from InfoRamp, a Chicago based Internet access provider launched by the co-founder of wireless phone company Cellular One.
As part of the investment, InfoRamp founder Steven DeMar will join NetPack’s board of directors and the two companies will explore other business opportunities.
NetPack hopes to blend the economics of online publishing with the familiarity of traditional retail sales. Using the system, customers purchase a laminated placard describing the software and displaying a code used to download the software later.
The company also sells downloadable books.
For more: www.netpack.com.
Cerplex Sells Subsidiary
Cerplex Group Inc., a financially ailing Irvine firm that has been liquidating assets to pay creditors, has sold its spare parts service to Alorica Inc., a Chino manufacturing logistics firm.
The PartSmart unit is an online service that arranges the sale and delivery of new and refurbished PC components for manufacturers.
Financial details of the deal were not announced, but according to Cerplex’s bankruptcy filings, Alorica is paying $208,000 for the division and expects it to generate up to $30 million in new sales this year.
Over the past few months, Cerplex has sold two other divisions to other companies in separate deals.
For more: www.alorica.com.
Jet-Powered Growth
Officials with online air-charter service eJets.com say business is skyrocketing, thanks to a booming economy and flight delays at commercial airlines.
Though the company won’t reveal sales, officials there say they tripled the number of flights booked and revenue in August, its second full month of operation.
The company arranges flights on private jets with outside fleets.
Company president Rick Robinson credits the increase to a good economy that leaves more people with extra money, and to bad weather that has played havoc with commercial airline schedules.
For more: www.ejets.com.
Bits:
Irvine Web design firm eBuilt Inc. has forged an agreement with e-commerce software maker BEA Systems Inc. of San Jose to offer transaction-processing systems to eBuilt customers Online document delivery service NowDocs Inc., Aliso Viejo, is expanding its overseas network, which now totals more than 200 destinations for same-day and next-day printing and shipment The Society for Internet Advancment’s Orange County chapter (www.siaoc.org) celebrates its second anniversary this month BIZ Interactive Zone, an Irvine company that makes computer security systems, has selected Litronic Inc. as a supplier Nexgenix, an Irvine company that designs online marketing systems, has launched a version of the service aimed at Hollywood-type companies led by newly appointed director of media and entertainment Ed Hynes. For more: www.nexgenix.com.
