Dvdplay Funding Work May 2026

| Round | Year | Amount | Lead Investor | Notable Terms | Outcome | |-------|------|--------|---------------|----------------|---------| | Series A | 2006 | $4.5M | Voyager Capital | Full ratchet, board seat | Burned for expansion | | Mezzanine debt | 2008 | $3.0M | Wellington Financial | 14.5% interest, convertible | Defaulted | | Studio rev-share | 2008 | $2.0M (imputed) | Lionsgate/Warner | 15% of revenue | Raised COGS to 47% | | Series B | 2009 | $12.0M | Oak Investment | 2x liquidation pref, pay-to-play | Lost on streaming pivot | | Convertible notes | 2011 | $2.5M | Portland angels | 20% discount, $0.25 floor | Converted to zero | | | | $24.0M | | | Recovery: $3.1M |

Then came Redbox. In late 2005, Redbox—then a joint venture between McDonald’s Ventures and Coinstar—rolled out 800 kiosks nationwide, pricing rentals at $1.00, undercutting DVDPlay’s $1.50. Overnight, Phillips’ bootstrapped model became unsustainable. He needed scale. He needed funding. dvdplay funding

The funding had bought growth, but not profitability. By 2008, the financial crisis was freezing VC wallets. Redbox, backed by McDonald’s real estate and Coinstar’s cash flow, dropped rental prices to $0.50 for a limited time. DVDPlay’s average revenue per kiosk fell from $1,100/month to $600/month. | Round | Year | Amount | Lead

The initial funding model was almost quaint: . Each machine cost $12,000 to build and $500 per month to service. If a kiosk pulled in $1,200 a month (roughly 40 rentals at $1.50 per night, plus late fees), Phillips plowed 90% of that back into building the next machine. By 2004, DVDPlay had 47 kiosks in Oregon and Washington. They were profitable, but tiny. He needed scale

In January 2012, DVDPlay filed for Chapter 7 liquidation. Total capital raised across all rounds and debt: . Total recovered for secured creditors: $3.1 million (mostly from selling kiosks for scrap metal and disc inventory to a liquidator in Texas). Unsecured creditors, including the Oregon drivers who had been paid in stock options, received nothing. Epilogue: What the Funding Bought (and What It Didn’t) The DVDPlay story is a textbook case of misaligned funding cycles . They raised equity when they needed debt, debt when they needed a strategic partner, and a growth round when they needed an exit.

DVDPlay’s story is not one of technology or consumer habit. It is a story of —of desperate rounds, convertible notes, and the brutal math that happens when you try to out-spend a giant selling dollar bills for ninety cents. This is the anatomy of a capital war. Act I: The Bootstrap Years (2002–2005) Long before the kiosk wars, DVDPlay was the side project of Mark and Sharon Phillips, two serial entrepreneurs who had made a small fortune in the Oregon wine distribution business. Their first machine—a clunky, beige box that held 300 discs and required a customer to swipe a credit card and manually return the DVD to a slot—was funded with $80,000 of their own savings.