Online Movie Service Cinemanow Acquired By Sonic Solutions
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Cinemanow, the online movie service that has been around for a long time, has been bought by Sonic Solutions, the digital media software company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Cinemanow, founded in 1999 along with the other rival movie service Movielink (which is now part of Blockbuster), was backed by Lionsgate, but never really took off, and had been languishing from slow growth, as other online TV-focused (and more open) rivals like YouTube, Hulu and others took off. It was one of the first ones to offer DVD burning with some movies, and also offered limited "day and date" download and DVD burning; it was also one of the first ones to be embedded with devices such as Dell, HP, Samsung, TiVo (NSDQ: TIVO), DivX (NSDQ: DIVX), and Archos, but adoption was minimal.
The company CEO Curt Marvis left earlier this year to join Lionsgate as its new president of digital media. In 2006, it received $20.3 million in late stage (fifth round) funding, from *Echostar* and Japanese mobile content giant Index Holdings (JSD: 4835). Previous investors included Transcosmos, *Cisco Systems*, Lionsgate and Menlo Venture. Total money invested was more than $40 million.
By Rafat Ali