Sean Parker’s video chat startup Airtime is still alive and kicking and has a new executive running it. According to sources, K2 Media Labs founder Daniel Klaus has joined the company, as it has moved its operations to New York City and is preparing for a relaunch after the original product failed to gain consumer traction.
Klaus joined Airtime after several years running New York City-based startup studio and incubator K2. During his time there, K2 launched several startups, including Sonar, Fingerprint Digital, and Tracks. Prior to that, Klaus served as served as Chief Executive Officer of the online media company Music Nation and Original Signal Recordings, which he had co-founded.
It’s not clear what Klaus’ actual title is: We’ve heard from one source that he has been named the company’s president, with founder Sean Parker retaining the CEO title; others have said that Klaus is taking over as CEO, with Parker sticking around as chairman. Either way, we’ve heard that he’s running day-to-day operations, with Parker handling more higher-level, strategic decisions. Update: We’re hearing the correct title is President after all, with Parker remaining as CEO. The more you know!
Klaus joined about six months after former CTO Eric Feng left Airtime, along another employee he brought along as part of Airtime’s acquisition of Erly last spring. The Erly team stuck around just long enough to get the Airtime product launched at a celebrity-filled party in New York.
Since then, Airtime has regrouped, moving its employee base to New York City — where Parker lives — with a reduced headcount. We’ve heard that Airtime now has about 10 employees, which is down from a high of about 40 more than a year ago. It’s also preparing to re-launch its product one more time, in an effort to get users on board and chatting with one another after the original product failed. Since being founded in 2011, Airtime had raised a total of $33.5 million, including $25 million that came around the time of its Erly acquisition.
We’ve got a request out to Airtime and will update this post as we learn more.