Eden Ventures et al. exit WE7 to Tesco

Eden backed WE7 in a $6m series-A round in 2008 together with Spark Ventures, Peter Gabriel and others.

Tesco acquired a 91% stake in WE7 for £10.8m and is expected to purchase the remaining shares within weeks.

WE7 will aid Tesco's strategy of offering customers new ways of accessing digital entertainment, the GP said in a statement. Tesco plans to launch additional digital music services from the platform.

Previous investment
Eden Ventures invested in a $6m financing round in WE7 in 2008 which was led by Spark Ventures. Both investors took a minority stake at the time.

Company
WE7 is an online music platform which is free to use and hosts a library of 11 million tracks. Music downloads are sponsored by advertising and can be accessed via a PC, Mac and mobile phone apps.

The "digital jukebox" was founded by musician Peter Gabriel and Steve Purdham, the chief executive, in 2007. Its office is based in Milton Keynes.

The business has never made a profit but turnover tripled in 2010 and losses fell to just under £3m, according to reports.

People
Mark Caroe is partner at Eden Ventures.

Advisers
Vendor - Ashfords, Andrew Betteridge (Legal).

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• SPARK Ventures