14 DAY TRIAL // One of the most successful start-ups in recent years, Ontela, has agreed to join forces with the Internet's biggest photo storage service, PhotoBucket. The new company will be known as PhotoBucket Corporation and will be run by Ontela's chief financial officer, Tom Munro. He will be president of the new entity, while Jon Miller, chairman and CEO of Digital Media for News Corporation, will be director.
News Corporation, which acquired PhotoBucket in 2007, will still hold a significant stake in the new firm, while Ontela's investors will have to make a new capital commitment to ensure an equal stake in the new corporation.
This development comes as a long awaited decision from Ontela to go forward with a bigger company. Since its launch, interest has been rising in the start-up, to a point where it was considered the hottest prospect on the stock market.
Ontela's services are considered not only top-of-the-line, but also ground-breaking and innovative. Customers taking pictures with their mobiles have the ability to automatically store them directly on their computer or on various online storage services like PhotoBucket, Flickr, Blogger, Snapfish or Shutterfly.
Currently, the service has seen large adoption across wireless carriers including T-Mobile, Verizon, Alltel or United Wireless. This detail right here has also spurred huge interest across the business world and many conference rooms.
Capitalizing on its over-night success, Ontela's management did not only avoid a take-over, but also convinced the leading image hosting service in the world to merge on equal terms and positions.
Tom Munro, Ontela’s chief financial officer, said, “We are pleased to bring together these two dynamic companies that are at the leading edge of the explosion of content sharing in the digital photography space. We believe Photobucket’s vast consumer audience and content leadership – and the talented team of professionals who have driven the business – complements and brings great promise to Ontela’s technology leadership in mobile photo sharing applications.”
Jon Miller, chairman and CEO of Digital Media for News Corporation, stated, “In partnering with Ontela and its investors, we are able to maintain and expand our strong foothold in the online imaging category. As consumers evolve the ways in which they capture, consume and share their photos and video across multiple devices, there couldn’t be a more perfect partner for Photobucket to align with as it enters this new chapter.”
Here is a video presentation of Ontela's services made by Dan Shapiro, CEO.
