Investors buy up a stake in ALTUS AG
The deal concluded between Berliner ALTUS AG and two venture capitalists has been finalised. Findus Beteiligungen AG and AHAG Wertpapierhandelshaus AG have a combined stake of 7.5% in the Full Service Streaming Media Group. The investment objective of the venture capitalists is to acquire companies within their portfolio that come from future-oriented, innovative lines of business. Findus AG has made an initial investment of 5%, whilst AHAG AG has invested 2.5% of the company value of ALTUS AG.
The venture capital is being directed to assist in the areas of rights acquisition, marketing, as well as to enable the internal growth of the group. "We can increase our acquisition of content rights with the help of this financial backing and consolidate our business areas in a focused way. The Internet is increasingly becoming an audio-visual medium - we will be major players in this market as streaming media experts in the future," as Thomas Look, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of ALTUS AG put it. The company is focusing its efforts on the development of audio-visual Internet portals in the areas of sport, business and entertainment, service offers in the field of webcasting ("All-Streams Interactive") as well as on the business to business project field. At the moment the company is negotiating in all these areas with potential customers and partners.
CEO Thomas Look is also confident with respect to the next round of finance talks in the summer, where it will concern DM 15-20 million in the form of a bridge loan for the plans to go public. ALTUS AG plans to go onto the stock market in the final quarter of the year 2000 or the first quarter of 2001.
ALTUS AG offers complete solutions for streaming media (live and on-demand). Streaming media is a technology, which is capable of providing audio, video and other forms of multimedia data on the Internet or on Intranets in real time. The ALTUS group consists of ALTUS Analytics AG (ALTUS AG for short) as the holding group and parent company, ALTUS Media GmbH and ALTUS Management GmbH.
ALTUS AG is currently realising, in co-operation with the German Football Federation (DFB), the official screening of the German Bundesliga on the Internet (http://www.bundesliga.de). The company technically converts the live radio broadcasts of all the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga games and is also responsible for the editorial content.
Additional information relating to the company and the individual products can be called up from the following Web-site: http://www.altus.de