Amp’d Mobile Implodes: Burns $360 million, Declares Bankruptcy
Written by on June 2nd, 2007 in Ajax News.
Mobile social networking company Amp’d Mobile has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
Amp’d Mobile competed with VelvetPuffin, Loopt and Helio in an attempt to deliver a compelling mobile based social networking product to a worldwide marketplace of 2.6 billion cell phone users.
According to mocoNews, Amp’d Mobile owes $33 million Verizon Wireless, $16 million to Motorola and $10 million to Vivendi. Smaller creditors include BestBuy at $8 million and MTV Networks: $1.8 million. Total debt is more than $100 million with assets less than that figure.
Amp’d Mobile had previously taken $360 million in funding over 5 rounds. Investors include RedPoint Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Columbia Capital.
What can you say about a company that blows $360 million in funding other than wow! No doubt that some will see the demise of Amp’d Mobile as the tip of an industry iceberg and certainly it would be one of the biggest, if not the biggest corporate failure of a Web 2.0 related company. However, as much as it would be easy to draw that conclusion, Amp’d Mobile is not a typical Web 2.0 start up. The company is not a web only play; Amp’d Mobile provided EVDO mobile access and handsets in conjunction with their social networking platform. It probably sits more as a telco failure than a strict Web 2.0 one, but we’ve added Amp’d Mobile to the TechCrunch Deadpool none the less.
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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/121744114/