Online game firm closes Spokane site
A Spokane online game company has shut down its Spokane office after just three weeks, a company spokesman said.
Inland Northwest Gaming Systems had moved into the Luminaria Building downtown in early June, only to close recently, said Ted Brown, one of the company’s three owners.
“We basically couldn’t agree on a contract with the landlord,” said Brown.
But Chris Batten, a principal with building’s owner, Spokane-based Rencorp, said, “We discovered they didn’t have the ability to lease the space from us.”
Brown’s business planned to use the space, at 154 S. Madison, as a gathering place for game players interested in the latest multiplayer online games. He said the company is continuing plans to open other game centers across the city.
Batten said Rencorp is negotiating to lease the empty space to the next-door tenant, Empyrean Coffee, which will use it for catering and business meetings.
Stonewall News Northwest gets new publisher
Stonewall News Northwest, a monthly, Spokane-based newspaper that serves the Inland Northwest gay and lesbian community, has a new publisher.
Mike Schultz, a native of Seattle, replaces John Deen, who served as publisher for 10 years.
At an Inland Northwest Business Alliance meeting Wednesday, Schultz outlined his vision for the paper, highlighting a need for a more professional structure and attitude.
“The paper needs to be a business,” he said. “We need to grow up. We’re not a charity.”
Schultz said he bought the paper in early June because he was concerned it would disappear. He outlined plans to make the events calendar, one of the paper’s most-read sections, more interactive through updated postings on the paper’s Web site, www.stonewallnews.net.
The paper was founded in 1992 and is published by Stonewall Publishing, Inc. Stonewall News Northwest is distributed for free in nearly 50 locations around Spokane, North Idaho and Western Montana. It is also available by subscription.
PayPal founders set up Internet venture fund
The founders of PayPal have set up a $50 million fund for venture investments in consumer Internet startups.
Peter Thiel and Ken Howery are partners in the Founders Fund, and co-founder Luke Nosek is the fund’s venture partner.
Howery explained that the fund is a continuation of what the three have been doing for some time.
“We’ve been making early-stage VC investments since 1998, so we thought we should just set up a fund to formalize what we’d been doing for seven years,” Howery said. “The bubble implosion is also starting to sort itself out, so we have clarity in what works and what is fairly valued (in consumer Internet ventures).”
The new fund was raised both with capital from the partners as well as from several limited partners, whom Howery would not name. The firm will provide seed and early funding of around $500,000 to $1 million.
The partners have previously plunked dollars into companies like the California-based Thefacebook, Gamefly Inc., Friendster Inc. and Ironport Systems and will continue to focus on social networking, gaming and e-mail security companies.