Barely two years after launching with great fanfare, Latino Interactive Network, the holding company of Mio.TV, has filed for bankruptcy in a Delaware court.
The company, which aimed at creating a one-stop Web site where Latinos would watch TV, make phone calls and interact with one another for free, failed to raise the much needed cash from majority investors, Broadmoor Capital Partners of Overland Park, Kansas.
Sources close to the failed company told Hispanic TV Update that the entire management team has been dismantled, including Mio.TV co-founders Manuel García-Duran and Moses Frenck. As of mid October, vendors and former employees were awaiting to get paid from the liquidation of assets. Still, court-appointed bankruptcy lawyer, Alfred Giuliano, says the extent of such assets is not yet clear.
Among other high-profile executives the company had lured were Jenny Alonzo, former Lifetime Networks marketing executive, and BET's sales chief Steve Goldstein.
Steve Lord, a partner at Broadmoor Capital, confirmed Mio.TV's bankruptcy but declined to elaborate on why his company decided to liquidate it. "It is very unfortunate," Lord said. "We thought it was a good idea, but [the company] was just not operational."
Broadmoor Capital was only one of many investors which at some point or another bet on the future of the company. A first round of investors included Talbert Navia, head of the private funds group at Chadbourne & Parke, and Carlos Conde, a principal at Olympus Securities.
