BBTV is a private company again.
Formerly known as Broadband TV, the company, which pioneered embedding ads in videos, including on YouTube, went public in 2020.
But going public has not worked well for the company, so in November the company announced its founders, CEO Shahrzad Rafati and Hamed Shahbazi, would buy up all the shares in the company and go back to being a private enterprise.
As BIV earlier reported, BBTV’s shares fell from $14 per share at the start of 2021 to less than $1 by the start of 2023.
“The benefits to BBTV of being a public company have diminished substantially and are currently unavailable, as both the subordinate voting shares and debentures listed on the TSX are very thinly traded with low volume,” John Kim, chair of a special committee for the board of directors, explained in a press release in November.
Today, the process of returning to a private company was completed. As of January 11, the company will be de-listed from the TSX.
Founded in 2005, Broadband TV pioneered the monetization of videos with tools that allowed original content creators to generate revenue from their videos through embedded ads.
