Eric Schmidt, Sean Parker Among Moguls Investing In Raine

A high-profile roster of moguls in the tech and media industry are investing in a merchant bank, Raine, according to the Financial Times.

The FT reports that former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former Facebook president Sean Parker, Demand Media founder Richard Rosenblatt, former News Corp. COO Peter Chernin, and Facebook board member/Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen are among the investors, which reportedly include WPP and Mubadala Development, backing Raine, a bank launched by Ari Emanuel and two "former Wall Street dealmakers."

The FT writes of the boutique bank's operations:

Raine, which has offices in Los Angeles, New York and Shanghai, is led by Joe Ravitch, the media banker and former Goldman Sachs partner, and Jeff Sine, the former head of the UBS technology, media and telecoms division. It is on course to raise $500m to finance acquisitions in media, sports and entertainment, with investors including Terry Semel, former chief executive of Yahoo, Jay and Miky Lee, from the family that started Samsung, and Masayoshi Son, founder of Softbank, the Japanese media group.

In addition to backing Raine, Parker reportedly invested in music streaming service Spotify. Andreessen also recently topped Forbes' 2011 list of the top tech investors.

Comments

[DaveWisc]

10:09 PM on 04/11/2011

What's the point. More money?

Bunch of loons. I was never impressed with Schmidt. He turned into the evil one.

Do they want anything besides their own private empire?

Blah.

Why don't these guys team up and do something to help somebody. Like what the world needs now is one more media conglomerate?

[Brian Gorrell]

06:48 PM on 04/11/2011

When will they have enough?
I'm just sickened by it all.
The world is going to the dogs.