Monday, May 1, 2006

Muze Buys LoudEye's US Operations

Muze, a New York-based provider of digital content, has acquired certain assets of Seattle-based Loudeye in an $11M deal, the firm announced. Muze, which is fully owned by San Diego-based venture capital firm Enterprise Partners, said that it will use the acquisition to offer turn-key, fully hosted music download and subscriptions, along with a 30-second music sampling service. Muze said that the transaction closed on April 30th. The deal includes Loudeye's encoding services, music samples service, and hosting and internet radio services. Loudeye said that it will refocus its services on its OD2 platform, a music download service in Europe. The businesses sold to Muze account for roughly 23% of Loudeye's total revenue for last year. Muze is headed by Bill Stenstrud, who is managing director of Enterprise Venture Capital. Enterprise purchased the firm from Metromedia in May of 2005, and Carl Eibl, another managing director of Enterprise is on the company's board.

---