AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Online-Video Firm Revver Is Acquired by LiveUniverse - The Wall Street Journal

Online-video company Revver Inc., which has tried to stake out a niche by broadcasting only material that doesn’t infringe on copyrights, has been sold to online-entertainment network LiveUniverse for less than $5 million, people familiar with the matter said.

The sale is a blow to Revver’s investors, who had sunk $12.75 million into the Los Angeles company. The deal demonstrates the difficulty many online-video start-ups are having competing with Google Inc.’s YouTube.

“YouTube is by far the gorilla” in the market, said Josh Felser, president of Crackle Inc., the online-video company formerly known as Grouper that is now owned by Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures Entertainment Co.

Revver officials and some of its investors, including Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Bessemer Venture Partners, declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment. LiveUniverse, led by former Intermix Media Inc. Chief Executive Brad Greenspan, who helped start MySpace.com, didn’t return a message seeking comment. News of the Revver sale was reported earlier by the Web site NewTeeVee.

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