BurstNet acquired by DigiPlus

[XFS_Duke]

DigiPLUS Assumes Assets of BurstNet, Relocates Main Data Center


April 1, 2014


Charlotte, NC


The DigiPLUS Company announced today that it has assumed the assets and client contracts of BurstNET®, a worldwide leader in Web Hosting and Internet Solutions. The new management company has relocated one of its three data centers from Scranton, Pennsylvania to Charlotte, North Carolina.


"Assuming the assets of BurstNet illustrates our commitment to providing a broader product portfolio, new technology and applications expertise to better serve BurstNET clients,” says JW Ray, CEO of DigiPLUS. “Although moving a data center presents challenges in the short term, we will now be able to offer the capacity for growth and peace of mind of a world-class infrastructure. We are working 24/7 to minimize any disruptions in service.”


The new data center has earned a Tier 3 rating as a highly redundant location with eight carriers and three times the bandwidth capacity of BurstNET’s former data center location in Pennsylvania. DigiPLUS also utilizes data centers in Miami, Florida and Los Angeles, California.


“Our DigiPLUS team is dedicated to delivering the reliability and dependability each and every client deserves,” says Art Faccone, Senior Vice President of Client Care for DigiPLUS. “Current and future clients will be better served by our more complete, stable and secure global product offering."


The acquisition enhances BurstNET’s Dedicated Server, VPS, Colocation, Backup Storage, and Cloud Computing portfolios. The BurstNET brand will transition to the DigiPLUS name over the next few months.


Additional executive team members have been brought on to assist in the transition. They include Brandon Dorsey as Vice President of Finance and Arthur Cote as Vice President of Operations.


Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.


BurstNET Technologies, Inc. is a worldwide leader in Web Hosting and Internet Solutions. It currently hosts 10,000+ Dedicated Servers and Colocated machines, 20,000+ Virtual Private Servers (VPS), and millions of websites.

 

[rds100]

April 1st is a very inappropriate day to make such announcements.

 

[XFS_Duke]

I'm certain it is real... Lol but Yea it does seem to be bad timing.

 

[ocitysolutions]

JW Ray is CEO of both companies... To me this sounds like they are simply trying to avoid lawsuits and customer complaints. They fail to mention he's the CEO of Burst as well, although we all know that its on purpose.

 

[raindog308]

Hmmm...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digiplus

 

[DomainBop]

Hmmm...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digiplus

More likely it's this one...incorporated in Delaware on March 12th:

File Number:

5496695

Incorporation Date / Formation Date:

03/12/2014
(mm/dd/yyyy)

Entity Name:

DIGI-PLUS, LLC

Entity Kind:

LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (LLC)

Entity Type:

GENERAL

Residency:

DOMESTIC

State:

DE

 

 

 

 

REGISTERED AGENT INFORMATION

 

 

 

 

Name:

NATIONAL REGISTERED AGENTS, INC.

Address:

160 GREENTREE DR STE 101

City:

DOVER

County:

KENT

State:

DE

Postal Code:

19904

Phone:

(302)674-4089

 

[drmike]

Digi-Puss.

Impossible to say who or what as it's a fresh corporation filing in a State where public info is limited to the above.

I know these folks are a bunch of jokers though.  Whole move was rushed botchery and meant to avoid shedding customers. Customers are going to leave in droves even if they were moved to North Carolina.

"Additional executive team members have been brought on to assist in the transition. They include Brandon Dorsey as Vice President of Finance and Arthur Cote as Vice President of Operations."

BROUGHT ON?!?!?!

Brandon Dorsey =  Backlog Capital Portfolio Manager

Arthur Cote = Backlog Capital Vice President 

Here are our boys out for $20 million of polled investor taking..  Getting $200k of it according to Securities and Exchange.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1511248/000151124811000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml

 

[qps]

I'm surprised they picked this name given how frequently it is already used.  

digiplus.com and digiplus.net both appear to be for sale by domain name brokers.

 

[drmike]

JW served as a Senior Vice President at Morgan
Stanley and Assistant Vice President at Merrill Lynch providing financial advice and asset
management for 8 years.

Cote's most recent position was with Citigroup where he served as Senior Vice President and East Coast
Division Manager.

------

Some economic hitmen born and bred.

 

[drmike]

BACKLOG CAPITAL, LLC
Company Number
M11000001334
Other Identifiers
SEC CIK number: 1511248
US EIN number: 274259256
Status
Active
Company Type
Foreign Limited Liability
Jurisdiction
Florida (US)
Branch
Branch of Delaware (US) company
Directors/ Officers
JW RAY
KRISTEN M RAY, agent

So we learn these guys like LLCs in Delware and the Florida entity bears the wife's name.

 

[drmike]

J.W. RAY, vice president, branch LEARN.COM, INC. (Connecticut
(US), 6 Dec 2005- )
JW RAY, director, inactive branch LEARN.COM, INC. (Florida (US))
JW RAY, vice president, inactive JOLO VENTURES, INC. (Florida (US))
JW RAY, manager, inactive branch J R HOLDINGS, LLC
(Connecticut (US), 10 Aug 2005- )
JW RAY, vice president, inactive branch LEARN.COM, INC. (Florida
(US))
JW RAY, vice president, inactive LEARN2 CORPORATION (Florida (US), 8 Jun 2002- )
JW RAY, vice president, inactive MENTOR COMMUNICATION LEARNING AND SUPPORT, INC. (Florida (US), 5 Jun 2004- )
JW RAY, director, inactive JOLO VENTURES, INC. (Florida (US))
JW RAY, president, inactive JOLO VENTURES, INC. (Florida (US))
JW RAY, treasurer, inactive JOLO VENTURES, INC. (Florida (US))
JW RAY, RAY FAMILY HOLDINGS, LLC (Florida (US), 10 Jul 2010- )

 

[drmike]

The rabbit hole goes deeper...

"JW is also the founder of Backlog Capital LLC, a Venture Debt Fund focused on lending money to early to mid-stage technology companies."

VENTURE DEBT FUND.  Nice injection of debt there.

Jolo is interesting, above incorporations...

It happens to the be street name where Backlog is based, and where their vineyard is... and where their education company is...

http://www.jolovineyards.com/our-story/jw-ray-kristen-ray

http://ww.webteach.com/about#team

Back to Venture debt funding...

"Venture debt or venture lending or "venture leasing" is a type of debt financing provided to venture-backed companies by specialized banks or non-bank lenders to fund working capital or capital expenses, such as purchasing equipment. Unlike traditional bank lending, venture debt is available to startups and growth companies that do not have positive cash flows or significant assets to use as collateral. Venture debt providers combine their loans with warrants, or rights to purchase equity, to compensate for the higher risk of default."

"Venture debt is typically structured as one of three types:
Growth capital: Typically term loans, used as equity round replacements, for M&A activity, milestone financing or working capital.
Accounts receivable financing: borrowings against the accounts receivable item on the balance sheet.
Equipment financing: loans for the purchase of equipment such as network infrastructure.

The venture lender effectively piggybacks on the due diligence done by the venture capital firm."

So do we believe accounts receivable were placed up as collateral?   Possible.   The deals with Burst were public sold as M&A in nature and for growth (new DC most notably).

Doubt we'll ever know if Burst failed to make payment obligations or if this was something hostile.

Deal still smells mighty bad.

 

[DomainBop]

Brandon Dorsey =  Backlog Capital Portfolio Manager

Arthur Cote = Backlog Capital Vice President

Lois (controller at DigiPort, Burst,  and Backlog) will be named the DigiPlus controller soon.

 

[drmike]

I find it funny that Webtech.com, which these folks own / started / run and is based at HQs at Jolo... their website.... is hosted... at:

Dacentec.com

So much for all the good words about the new datacenter location at DC74... Won't host your own major investment there...

Ho hum...

 

[rds100]

I doubt they put so much thought about spending $5/month for hosting. They have probably just paid some web design company to make the website and host it.

 

[drmike]

I doubt they put so much thought about spending $5/month for hosting. They have probably just paid some web design company to make the website and host it.

Nope, wrong.

Watch this:

nslookup webteach.com


Name: webteach.com


Address: 199.191.59.2


whois 199.191.59.2

# start


NetRange: 199.191.59.0 - 199.191.59.7


CIDR: 199.191.59.0/29


OriginAS: AS31863


NetName: EMEET-199-191-59-0


NetHandle: NET-199-191-59-0-1


Parent: NET-199-191-56-0-1


NetType: Reassigned


RegDate: 2012-07-28


Updated: 2012-07-28


Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-199-191-59-0-1


CustName: eMeet.Me Corp.


Address: 212 Pilgrim Rd


City: West Palm Beach


StateProv: FL


PostalCode: 33405


Country: US

Well?  Who is eMeet.me?  http://www.crunchbase.com/company/emeet-me-corp

Sebastian Replanski


President - CEO

Fuller, but incomplete bio:

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/sebastian-replanski

Then...

You go here: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastianreplanski

Which says:

Current


Co-Founder & Director of Development at WebTeach.Com


President & CEO at Bellesoft Consulting Corp.


Past


President - CEO at eMeet Me Corp.

So.... it was an in-house selection of Dacentec, by the co-founder of WebTeach and same company HQ's and people as  Jolo / DigiPlus / bitter grapes winery.

 

[Exelion]

Why does this feel like an April Fools prank gone horribly wrong?

 

[thedediguy]

Why does this feel like an April Fools prank gone horribly wrong?

Yeah I thought the same but sadly it is not, all I see for burst is doom, 2 moves so far, not doing well

 

[drmike]

Arthur Cote... Cote ehh?

Cote definition -> "a shed or coop for small domestic animals and especially pigeons "

 

[drmike]

Jolo....  I get it... like #yolo... but it's #jolo or Joey Only Lives Once.

Good old JW Ray = Joe Ray, Joey Ray and a few other permutations.

Timing is funny.   That 80 acre spread, in Pilot Mountain, NC, plays home base to his software company, venture debt fund and some other stuff.  Including a soon to be restaurant and winery.  Funny how the calendar aligns with running from Pennsylvania and not paying bills....

Burst stops paying bills, Ray starts buying his winery.  Burst suddenly shuts down and runs from Pennsylvania and it's nearly opening day for the winery and restaurant.  

http://www.journalnow.com/home_food/columnists/michael_hastings/vineyard-opens-in-pilot-mountain/article_ceb31fb7-84c3-575f-a592-5e97f9e19e81.html

"JW Ray is the winemaker for JOLO, and Sean McRitchie acts as a consultant."

and... http://myfox8.com/2014/03/26/3-new-wineries-coming-to-surry-co/

"The winery, named for the couple’s two teenage children, Joey and Logan, is set to open April 5. "

In February, Ray rushed to get the town of Pilot Mountain, NC, to annex 20 acres of his property so he could take advantage of the liquor laws --- even though his property is not adjacent to the town limits:

"

A second public hearing will be held at the Feb. 24 meeting on a petition from J.W. Ray, owner of JOLO Winery & Vineyard, requesting the property being annexed into the town limits of Pilot Mountain.

The annexation would be a satellite annex, since the property is not adjacent to any existing property in the town limits.

Dearmin explained to the board that the vineyards are not requesting any services with the annexation, and a notarized letter stating the town is not responsible for any services has been signed by Ray.

\u201cIf he ever decides he wants water and sewer, he will be responsible for paying for that extension,\u201d Dearmin said.

\u201cThe planning board issued favorable action on the petition, with us verifying the agreement that the town doesn\u2019t have to provide services,\u201d he reported.

Ray plans to open a restaurant at the tasting room and applied for the annexation in order to take advantage of the town\u2019s mixed beverage permits and ABC licensing.

The annexation, if approved by the commissioners, would bring two parcels totaling 20.76 acres into the town limits. The project market value of the site is $795,000, according to the petition provided by Ray."