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… (read more)