We’ve confirmed from multiple sources that San Francisco/Seattle based music service iLike, which has been profitable since 2008, is raising new capital in an unusual transaction designed to push out Ticketmaster, an investor since 2006.
The company has raised a total of $16.5 million from the founders, Scott Banister, Bob Pittman, Vinod Khosla and Ticketmaster to date. But their last round of funding was in 2006, where Ticketmaster put the bulk of the capital in via a third round of financing that valued the company at a whopping $53.2 million.
In Q4 2008 Ticketmaster wrote down a number of their venture investments, including a $5.8 million charge for iLike. Internally, they valued that $13.3 million investment at just $7.5 million.
Now, we’ve confirmed, the founding team plus a new investor is offering to buy out all or some of Ticketmaster’s stake in the company. Founders Ali Partovi, Hadi Partovi and Nat Brown, all with significant personal fortunes, will invest part of the new round, with the new investor taking the rest.
The company isn’t commenting on this story.