Napster Gets New CEO and $15 Million In Venture Capital Napster Gets New CEO, $15 Million In Venture Capital Paul Jones
Hank Barry, a partner at San Francisco-based Hummer Winblad, will become interim chief executive officer of San Mateo, Calif.-based Napster, succeeding Eileen Richardson, said Chris Phenner, a business development official at Napster. John Hummer, a co-founder of Hummer Winblad, also will likely join Napster's board, Phenner said in an interview Friday at a charity auction co-sponsored by Angel Investors.
Napster was in talks with several venture capital firms, though some were reluctant to invest in the company because of the legal cloud over it. The company has been closely watched by investors because of the large potential market for its service as the Internet changes the way consumers get music. Although the company has no revenue, its service has caught on quickly, particularly among college students.
The company, started by 19-year-old Shawn Fanning, currently has in the "low double-digit millions" of registered users, growing at about 10 percent compounded daily, Napster executive Brandon Barber said.
In December 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster, saying Napster infringed record labels' copyrights by allowing free distribution of copyrighted music over the Internet. MP3.com Inc., another Internet music distributor, was sued on similar grounds in January 2000.
