Irvine-based WWW.COM, which transmits music over the Internet, says it has raised $41.5 million from venture capitalists and a European broadcaster that wants the Internet firm to launch the service globally.
The bulk of the money comes from Carlton Communications PLC, the U.K.’s largest independent broadcaster which is pouring in $25.6 million to create a European version of the company’s service. Other investors are Synapse Capital, Gold & Appel Limited, and Transamerica Business Credit Corp.
Carlton will invest $11.6 million into WWW.com directly and provide another $14 million into a joint venture called WWW.com Europe, which aims to create an online site for European musical tastes.
WWW.com has become one of the Internet’s most popular music Web sites and has a large music library, thanks to an agreement hammered out last year with the Washington, D.C.-based Recording Industry Association of America, the industry group that enforces copyrights and collects royalties for musicians in the U.S.
Under the deal, a Carlton official will hold a seat on WWW.com’s board of directors and work with the European venture. In addition, WWW.com subsidiary CODEC.com will convert Carlton’s music and film library into digital form and handle the process of storing and playing it over the Internet.
Officials with WWW.com say the deal is the first step in creating a global brand.
Synapse Connects
Synapse Capital LLP, an Orange County venture capital firm founded by two former executives of Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology Co., has made an undisclosed investment in a Los Angeles Internet company called Competitive Knowledge Inc.
CKI creates industry Web sites designed to give executives easy access to news and information to improve performance.
Synapse’s founders, Henri Tchen and Ken Barnett, once served as the CFO and treasurer of Kingston and have been active in the area’s investor community since leaving the memory products company. Their firm manages more than $1 billion.
Beyond Broadband
Sticks and stones may break their bones, but the wrong name can really hurt upstart tech firms.
Just ask Chad and Ryan Steelberg, who are hoping to ensure their moniker doesn’t limit their company, Broadband Digital Group, to digital subscriber line technology or the free high-speed Internet access it offers.
They’re changing Broadband Digital Group’s name to Winfire Inc., adopting the title of the software required to access the company’s FreeDSL service.
The entrepreneurial siblings originally founded Winfire with the idea of creating a browser add-on that offered helpful Internet tools along with advertising. After founding Broadband Digital Group late last year to provide a free DSL service that used the Winfire software, the brothers simplified things by merging the companies.
By renaming the company, the pair hope to stress that the company, much like America Online Inc., offers a package of Internet access and content and isn’t tied to any specific technology.
“The new Winfire is a multifaceted company focused not solely on access but on a complete broadband experience, and we needed a name that encompasses all we offer,” said Ryan Steelberg, the company’s president and co-chief executive.
Nice theory, but doesn’t the “win” in Winfire imply the software, like almost every other program with the prefix, runs only on the Microsoft Corp.’s Windows platform?
For more: www.winfire.com
Bits:
Irvine Web site design firm eBuilt Inc. has opened a Los Angeles office at 4640 Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood to have operations closer to clients there. … Rainbow Technologies Inc., Irvine, won Network World magazine’s Blue Ribbon Award for its CryptoSwift 600 package, which allows private Internet and network transmissions without slowing down the process of coding and decoding the data. The award comes on the heels of its award from the Orange County chapter of American Electronics Association. … Odetics Broadcast, a division of Odetics Inc. of Anaheim, has released its MicroStation Automation System, which is being touted as a “station in a box” for broadcasters. For more: www.odetics.com. … Printnation.com, a 7-month-old Irvine company that operates an Internet hub for commercial printers, was named as one of Upside magazine’s top 100 privately held companies.
