Seven new international strategic partners
are putting an additional $31 million into
lastminute.com,
the late-purchase e-commerce company announced this week.
The seven partners are BAA plc, Priceline.com, Bass Hotels
& Resorts, Sony Music Entertainment, Starwood Hotels
and Resorts Worldwide, Viventures and Mitsubishi Corp. Finance.
“This is another important step in realizing our strategy to
become the global last minute marketplace,” said the joint
founders of lastminute.com, Brent Hoberman and Martha
Lane Fox, in a statement.
Hoberman and Fox said they expected to create many
exciting new offerings for customers in target markets
as a result of the deal.
lastminute.com continues its rapid expansion, having
recently appointed Heads of Northern and Southern
Europe to oversee the start-up of country-specific
businesses. The extra funding will be vital for these
new enterprises, says the firm
Speaking for priceline.com, Chief Executive Officer
Rick Braddock said he viewed lastminute.com’s business
model as complementary to that of priceline. He said the
two companies would work closely together both domestically
and internationally.
The new backers of lastminute.com will be joining several
others, including France Telecom’s venture fund Innovacom,
Deutsche Telekom’s venture fund T-Ventures and Intel.
Launched in October 1998, lastminute.com was originally
funded by Arts Alliance and Global Retail Partners.