You’re reading it here first: Moderati, the U.S. mobile content retailer and application distributor, owned till now by Japanese content giant Faith Inc, has been bought out by Santa Monica-based digital media company Bellrock Media. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed officially, but we have confirmed from our sources that the deal is valued in the mid double-digit millions, which makes it amongst the bigger mobile content deals in the last year.
Moderati operates ringtone site ModTones, as well as recently launched MobileFaker, a social app on Sprint. It is also one of the two main content-outsourcing companies working with Sprint (the other being Oasys Mobile). Moderati was founded in 2001 as Faith West, and owned fully by Faith Inc…it changed its name to Moderati couple of years ago. Founder Carolynne Schloeder will join Bellrock as COO of the company.
I spoke briefly to Bellrock president Peter Levin, and he said this is the first big mobile content push for his company, which was founded in 2005 as a broadband and mobile content developer and distributor. The company has major funding from Intel Corp, Yoshimoto Kogyo (one of the biggest talent firms in Japan) and Faith Inc (and it is a cash transaction, despite the two companies sharing Faith as an investor/owner) . Levin is a former CAA agent and worked at Disney and investment firm Lynx Technologies. Levin mentioned that his company has just closed its second round of funding, though it is still talking to couple of U.S. media firms to bring them into the round.
Bellrock was formed in 2005, and has previously bought a digital media distribution firm Defiance Distribution. It has developed some original content in ZZZ.tv, Comedy.com and others, and has a co-development deal with Tennis Channel, Jel-Sert and others.
Moderati meanwhile has relationships with all major carriers in U.S…this will help the company expand beyond its primary focus on ringtones and into other mobile content apps and services, along with online distribution as well.
Levin also mentioned that Moderati brand name will transition into Bellrock, through the company will keep ModTones as a consumer brand. Because of Bellrock’s Japanese heritage and distribution, the company also hopes to market its products in Japan as well. Updated: The combined companies will have revenues of about $60 million in first year, says this Variety story.
Related:
—Sprint Launches Faking Tool With Moderati
—Sprint Nextel Outsources Some Content Acquisition