Thumbplay News

 
Largest Radio Company Adds Mobile Content to Boost Local Sites

NEW YORK – March 24, 2008Thumbplay®, the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content service in the U.S. (Nielsen Mobile, Q3 and Q4 2007), today announced a relationship with Clear Channel Radio to roll out customized mobile content stores across more than 650 of its local music stations’ Web sites, plus several more news and sports stations, throughout 2008.

Thumbplay’s content is contextually featured in areas including the ‘Just Played’ box and ‘Top 20 On Demand’ lists on all participating local radio stations’ home pages. In addition, links to the mobile content store are found in the ‘Last 10 Played’ playlist on each site. This enables listeners who like songs heard on these stations to purchase them as ringtones for more than 2,000 supported handsets across all major U.S. wireless carriers.

Thumbplay’s mobile content stores have already launched on more than 100 stations’ Web sites across the country, including those in such large metropolitan markets as Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta and Houston. Among the first stations to launch the new mobile content stores are KIIS-FM 102.7 (www.kiisfm.com), Los Angeles’ #1 hit music station (Contemporary Hit Radio), WJRR-FM Real Rock 101 (www.wjrr.com) in Orlando (Rock) and WGCI-FM 107.5 (www.wgci.com), Chicago’s #1 station for Hip-Hop and R&B (Urban).

As part of the integration, each radio station site will host a customized store featuring format-appropriate mobile content. Thumbplay also developed a customizable widget allowing DJs at each station to choose their favorite ringtones and update those selections themselves online.

“Many of our listeners first discover their favorite songs on radio,” said Larry Linietsky, Vice President of Business & Product Development for Clear Channel Online Music & Radio. “We can now connect the dots by delivering a broad selection of mobile content, including exclusive station-created ringtones and graphics, right to our listeners via our stations’ websites.”

“For radio stations, the discovery of relevant mobile content, whether ringtones or music videos, is a natural extension of the listener experience,” said Are Traasdahl, Thumbplay’s CEO and founder. “Thumbplay gives radio stations and their personalities the ability to sell mobile content and to quickly tap into new revenue while requiring minimal resources for implementation.”

With more than 80,000 pieces of mobile entertainment content under license, including ringtones, wallpapers, games, videos, voice tones and text-based services, Thumbplay has built a strong consumer following and gained broad recognition as a leader in the direct-to-consumer mobile content space.

About Thumbplay
Thumbplay, Inc. is defining the mobile entertainment experience for U.S. consumers. As the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content destination, Thumbplay gives consumers access to the broadest and deepest catalog in the industry, spanning audio, video and gaming content from the leading music labels and artists, game publishers and media companies. Its innovative delivery and marketing platform makes it easy for users to discover, manage, store and share mobile content online and on their wireless devices.

Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay was founded in September 2004 by Are Traasdahl and Evan Schwartz. It is backed by Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com.

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

VC TechNews -
Thumbplay gets a payday


by Clifford Carlsen

Mobile content publisher Thumbplay Inc. said Monday, March 17, it picked up a pair of late-stage crossover investors and $18 million in expansion capital in a fifth investment round that brings total equity investment in the four-year-old company to $54 million.

New York-based Thumbplay landed Brookside Capital Inc. of Boston and Cross Creek Capital of Salt Lake City as lead investors in the deal, joining previous venture investors i-Hatch Ventures and Redwood Partners LLC, both of New York; Softbank Capital of Boston; Bain Capital Ventures of New York; Meritech Capital Partners of Palo Alto, Calif.; and New Enterprise Associates of Baltimore.

The transaction is aimed at firms specializing in deals positioned as mezzanine rounds prior to a public offering, and Thumbplay founder and CEO Are Traasdahl said the company put word out in mid-February that it was looking for money and had several term sheets to choose from before closing on Feb. 28.

Brookside is the private equity arm of Bain Capital, whose venture arm led Thumbplay's $10 million third round in October 2006. Cross Creek, which is the private equity affiliate of money management firm Wasatch Advisors, was introduced to the deal by NEA. Traasdahl would not disclose a valuation for the new investment, but said the round was oversubscribed and that it came at a healthy premium in pricing on the company's $17.5 million round led by Meritech and NEA in May 2007.

"We were specifically looking for public market investors and crossover funds, and there was a lot of excitement among investors that allowed us to close it in 10 days," Traasdahl said. "The high quality of our new investors is very significant, since both typically invest in companies which offer opportunities to realize substantial long-term capital appreciation."

Greg Bohlen, a managing director of Cross Creek, said the firm only invests in deals it expects will be the final round before an exit, though he said the firm is successful in that goal about half the time. But he said the firm was attracted by Thumbplay's revenue growth and potential to remain an independent company.

"The growth rate of the company is pure evidence they have a good model, and it looks like they could be a very good public company," Bohlen said. "It is clear that more and more stuff is being done on cell phones all the time, and becoming more attractive for multiple uses. We see them as being ubiquitous devices."

Eric Hippeau, a managing partner with SoftBank, said Thumbplay has evolved with the market while claiming the largest market share as a seller of multiple forms of mobile content, including games, ringtones, music, wallpapers, videos, voice tones and text-based services. The company was recently adjudged the market leader in non-carrier revenues by research firm A.C. Nielsen & Co. in its Mobile Content Storefront Revenue report covering the third and fourth quarters for 2007.

"They have grown tremendously and are clearly the market leader, and this is a classic expansion round from classic late-stage investors, Hippeau said. "They are twice the size of their nearest competitor, and what they are developing is continuing to grow as they build a catalog of licensed content and community of users."

Traasdahl said the company will continue to license content from third-party developers, as well as acquire content and partners, and he said the largest focus of the current funding will be on inorganic growth. He said the company will look at all manner of potential acquisitions, while noting that the most likely deals would be for publishers with similar business models operating in new geographic markets.

Traasdahl said the company is poised to take the Thumbplay brand global, and he said any overseas acquisitions likely would transition to operate under the Thumbplay name.

Thumbplay used no outside adviser for the new round, and the company had legal work on the deal from Christian Porwoll in the New York headquarters of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. Alan Bell of Dorsey & Whitney LLP in Salt Lake City represented investors.

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Funding to Accelerate Growth, Extension of Product Offering and International Expansion

NEW YORK – March 17, 2008 – Thumbplay® (www.thumbplay.com), the #1 mobile entertainment content service in the U.S.*, today announced that it has raised $18 million in new capital through a Series E round that was led by Brookside Capital Partners, the public equity affiliate of Bain Capital, and Cross Creek Capital, a private equity affiliate of Wasatch Advisors.

"The high quality of our new investors is very significant, since both typically invest in companies which offer opportunities to realize substantial long-term capital appreciation," said Are Traasdahl, Thumbplay's CEO and founder. "This is a testament to Thumbplay's ongoing success."

Thumbplay plans to use the new capital to expand its direct-to-consumer product offerings, in addition to further developing the tools it provides content owners, creators, publishers and brand marketers. The company also plans to accelerate its strategic growth plans and to expand internationally in 2008 to meet the growing demand for mobile entertainment content around the world, including the possibility of identifying potential acquisitions that will help advance its leadership position in the worldwide mobile content industry.

“Thumbplay’s unique off-deck model for selling a wide variety of mobile entertainment content to consumers has already proven to be very successful here in the U.S. and we’re now ready to extend the positive customer experience we already deliver to the millions of mobile consumers all around the world,” added Traasdahl.

With more than 80,000 pieces of mobile entertainment content under license, including ringtones, wallpapers, games, videos, voice tones and text-based services, Thumbplay has built a strong consumer following and gained broad recognition as a leader in the direct-to-consumer mobile content space.


During the last quarter of 2007, Thumbplay announced deals to integrate its mobile entertainment content catalog into the Web and mobile portals of AOL and MSN Mobile, as well as iLike, one of the Web’s leading social music discovery services. Earlier this year, Thumbplay signed a digital distribution agreement to add content from Sony BMG Music Entertainment’s artists to Thumbplay’s already diverse mobile entertainment content catalog.

About Thumbplay
Thumbplay, Inc. is defining the mobile entertainment experience for U.S. consumers. As the largest and fastest growing mobile entertainment content destination, Thumbplay gives consumers access to the broadest and deepest catalog in the industry, spanning audio, video and gaming content from the leading music labels and artists, game publishers and media companies. Its innovative delivery and marketing platform makes it easy for users to discover, manage, store and share mobile content online and on their wireless devices.

Headquartered in New York City, Thumbplay was founded in September 2004 by Are Traasdahl and Evan Schwartz. It is backed by Bain Capital Ventures, SoftBank Capital, i-Hatch Ventures, Redwood Partners, New Enterprise Associates, Meritech, Brookside Capital Partners and Cross Creek Capital. More information can be found at www.thumbplay.com.

About Brookside Capital Partners & Bain Capital
Brookside Capital Partners is an investment fund affiliated with Bain Capital (http://www.baincapital.com), a leading global private investment firm with approximately $60 billion in assets under management. Formed in 1996, Brookside invests across a broad spectrum of industries including media and telecom, healthcare, consumer, industrial and financial services. Each investment is based on fundamental analysis of the company's business by professionals who are sector focused. Headquartered in Boston, Bain Capital has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, New York, London, and Munich.

About Wasatch Advisors®
Founded in 1975, Salt Lake City based Wasatch Advisors is an employee-owned investment adviser with roughly $7 billion under management. Wasatch Advisors is the investment adviser to Wasatch Funds®, a family of no-load mutual funds, as well as separately managed institutional and individual portfolios. Wasatch Advisors pursues a disciplined approach to investing, focused on bottom-up, fundamental analysis vetted through a uniquely collaborative Multiple Eyes™ process to leverage the knowledge and skill of the entire Wasatch Advisors research team.

About Cross Creek Capital®
Wasatch Advisors’ private equity affiliate, Cross Creek Capital, is a venture capital fund focused on late-stage private equity investments in what it believes are the best-of-breed public companies of the future. Wasatch Advisors’ experience in evaluating small public companies gives it unique insight into evaluating late-stage private companies. Cross Creek Capital leverages the knowledge and skill of the broader Wasatch Advisors research team in its investment decisions.

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