BitTorrent Gets an Unfavourable Funding Renegotiation

Although at a first impression one might say BitTorrent is slowly recovering especially that it has managed to raise $17 million in a third round over the summer, TechCrunch reveals that this would be the wrong impression, since the company has actually returned most of those funds to investors DAG Ventures, DCM and Accel Partners in exchange for a smaller, $7 million round.

It seemed that a more advertiser focused online video service might pull the company out of its misery but according to TechCrunch who grabbed a shareholder letter shareholder letter complained about its products " not gaining sufficient traction" and that it would "significantly miss its projections" leading to investor DAG Ventures insisting on a renegotiation of the funding.

Since its foundation back in 2004 BitTorrent has collected about $40 million in funding but now it appears that this latest development brought a major decrease of its valuation by nearly $12 million.

The news follows major management changes a month ago – both co-founder and president Ashwin Navin and CEO Douglas Walker left the company and about half the staff was fired.