iBEAM Acquires NextVenue For $375 Million

iBEAM (http://www.ibeam.com) said it was acquiring NextVenue, ( http://www.nextvenue.com), a streaming company servicing the financial industry, for $375 million.

NextVenue is a provider of streaming roadshows and other webcasts for Wall Street firms. NextVenue's clients include financial institutions like Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney, and Citigroup. As part of the deal NextVenue's broadcasts will be delivered via iBEAM's satellite delivery platform.

iBEAM benefits from this deal by getting closer to the financial community and by becoming a more well-rounded streaming company to better compete with the likes of Akamai and Cidera.

"Most of the early activity in streaming media has been focused on the entertainment space, but that's only one segment of the streaming media market," said Yankee Group analyst, Alex Benik. "This acquisition gives iBEAM a strong foot hold in the business-to-business market, particularly with financial customers, who are typically early adopters of new technologies. Success in both the entertainment and business-to-business segments is critical for networks such as iBEAM to fully realize their economies of scale."

iBEAM has been acquisitive lately, buying webcasts.com Inc. in April and most recently, Server-Side Technologies, a providerof secure digital rights management services.

Peter Desnoes, president and CEO of iBEAM says NextVenue is the leader in the B2B streaming market. "In a short time, NextVenue has built a very impressive client list, which is testament to the quality of its solutions and the team it has built," he said.

iBEAM also announced today its financial results for the second quarter, showing revenues at $3.4 million. Overall, however, the company posted a $33.1 million loss for the quarter.