Music Service Omnifone On Acquisition Trail As It Moves To Profit
White-label digital music vendor Omnifone has acquired Swedish indie online music distributor Global Media Bank, and looks set to bolt on more companies over the next year.
CEO Jeff Hughes tells PaidContent the company – which powers Sony Music Unlimited, Rara and a service for BlackBerry – turned a £3.8 million EBITDA profit in the year to April on revenue that doubled from £13.5 million to £29.5 million.
“Global Media Bank provides one of deepest catalogues of independent music.
“We will continue to look at other opportunities. We’re not the largest company in the world so we will remain very disciplined. We’ve done one (acquisition); we learned from doing it.”
Digital music services are not known for making a profit. But then, Omnifone’s clients are large companies, not consumers.
Omnifone was founded in 2003 by software and internet entrepreneurs Rob Lewis, Phil Sant and Mark Knight, newly minted from selling Cromwell Media to InterX for £850 million. Lewis was also founding CEO of Silicon.com, sold to CNET.
Hughes confirms: “We’ve raised $60 million in the last five years to build the platform.” That money is from “mostly high net worth individuals”; Omnifone has never taken any VC or private equity money. So what’s the next financial step?
“We’ve got really patient investors who are not putting pressure on us to do anything,” Hughes says. Read the full story at Paidcontent.org
Related posts:
- Interview: Omnifone CEO Eyes Investments As Music Access Takes Off
- TMV Video Interview: Rob Lewis, CEO – Omnifone
- Apple Moves Toward Music As Service
- Omnifone and Gracenote team up to eliminate file format and DRM headaches
- Interview: Rhapsody Hopes To Hit Profit This Year, May Seek Investment
Posted by Robert Andrews
on Sep 11 2012. Filed under Digital, featured.
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