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RoyaltyShare Contact:
Steve Grady
President, COO
(858) 458-1600 ext. 11
steve@royaltyshare.com
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Editorial Contact:
Michael Kelly
Nadel Phelan
(831) 440-2403
michael@nadelphelan.com
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RoyaltyShare Receives Additional $4 Million in Series B Funding from
Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) and Trident Capital
Total of $9M Now Raised to Finance Enhancements to Software-as-a-Service Platform and New Service Offerings
BDMI President Richard Sarnoff Joins RoyaltyShare Board of Directors
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SAN DIEGO, Oct. 22, 2007 - RoyaltyShare, a premier provider of digital royalty and content management solutions to the entertainment industry, today announced $4M of additional Series B financing from Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) and Trident Capital. BDMI is a unit of Bertelsmann AG, a leading international media company with nearly $25 billion in revenues and significant interests in major areas of media, including television, music, books, magazines, direct marketing and media services. Trident Capital led the round with an initial five-million-dollar investment, bringing the Series B total to $9 million.
Since its founding in 2005, RoyaltyShare has emerged as the first software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider of royalty processing solutions and other Web-based services supporting the distribution and sale of digital music. RoyaltyShare has more than 150 customers worldwide, including many of the world's leading independent labels.
"This new funding will be used to aggressively enhance the capabilities of our software-as-a service platform and expand our digital royalty and content management offerings to support additional media industries," said Bob Kohn, chairman and CEO of RoyaltyShare. "We are very excited to be working closely with BDMI and Trident Capital."
Don Dixon, co-founder and managing director of Trident Capital said, "Advancements in digital media distribution and content delivery technologies are opening up a variety of new opportunities for all entertainment industries." He added, "To succeed in the digital era, media companies will require access to a scalable technological infrastructure that supports the unique challenges arising from the shift in business models. Trident's investment is an expression of our confidence in RoyaltyShare as key enabler for the success and growth of the global entertainment industry."
As part of today's announcement, Richard Sarnoff, President of BDMI and Executive Vice President of Random House, will join the RoyaltyShare Board of Directors.
"As more media revenue in the music, video and book publishing industries shifts toward digital sources, an urgent need has arisen for scalable web-based services capable of managing diverse revenue data streams and the royalty payments that flow from them," said Richard Sarnoff, President of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments. "RoyaltyShare is strategically positioned to play an important role in the way media companies will manage the critical back office services that arise from digital and mobile distribution."
About Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI)
Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI) is a strategic venture investor focused on innovative digital media technologies, products and distribution channels across the globe. BDMI is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann AG, a leading international media company with nearly $25 billion in revenues. With more than 600 individual companies, Bertelsmann AG has significant interests in major areas of media including television, music, books, magazines, direct marketing and media services. For more information, visit: http://www.bdmifund.com
About Bertelsmann AG
Bertelsmann is an international media company encompassing television (RTL Group), book publishing (Random House), magazine publishing (Gruner + Jahr), music (BMG), media services (Arvato), and media clubs (Direct Group) in more than 60 countries. Bertelsmann's claim is to inspire people around the world with first-class media and communications offerings – entertainment, information and services – and occupy leading positions in its respective markets. The foundation of Bertelsmann's success is a corporate culture based on partnership, entrepreneurial spirit, creativity, and corporate responsibility. The company strives to bring creative new ideas to market and create value.
Bertelsmann is comprised of the television channels, television production companies, and radio stations of Europe's largest entertainment group, RTL Group (RTL Television, M6, Five, Fremantle Media), and the more than 120 publishing houses of Random House, the world's largest trade book publisher (Alfred A. Knopf, Bantam, Goldmann). Gruner + Jahr is Europe's number one magazine publisher (Stern, Geo, Neon, Capital). The Sony BMG joint venture in the BMG division is synonymous with creativity and strong international music brands (Beyoncé, Dixie Chicks, Justin Timberlake, Christina Aguilera). The Arvato media and communications services division brings together distribution, service centers and customer-relationship management, state-of-the art printing manufacturing, storage media production, mobile services, and comprehensive IT services. Bertelsmann's direct-to-customer businesses are unified within the Direct Group: book, DVD, and music clubs (Der Club, France Loisirs), as well as book retailers in France and Portugal.
About Trident Capital
Trident Capital is a leading private equity and venture capital firm committed to empowering entrepreneurs to build innovative and industry leading businesses. Founded in 1993, the firm manages over $1.6 billion of capital in a focused effort to develop world-class information services and software business. Trident has invested in more than 100 companies since inception, including market leaders such as CSG Systems, Viant, Mapquest, Sabre Holdings and iRobot. For more information, please visit: http://www.tridentcap.com
About RoyaltyShare
RoyaltyShare is the worldwide leader in Web-based royalty processing and digital content management solutions for the global entertainment industry. Utilizing an innovative Software as a Service (SaaS) application delivery model, RoyaltyShare provides a suite of on-demand services dedicated to simplifying the increasingly complex digital sales process. Its state-of-the-art system and dedicated support team enables music labels, distributors and publishers to accurately manage the entire digital sales process anytime, anywhere. RoyalyShare's service offerings include the ripping and coding of content, metadata management, storage and delivery of digital content, managing sales and distribution information, calculating royalties and generating Web-accessible royalty reports. RoyaltyShare's Web-based solution supports the management of content sold through digital, physical, subscription, mobile and other channels. For more information, please visit http://www.royaltyshare.com.
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