Wolpert Takes Own Advice in Investing
No one can accuse Richard Wolpert, chief executive of Beverly Hills-based e-commerce site CheckOut.com, of not putting his money where his mouth is. Wolpert, the former Disney Online president who often hypes the benefit of blending entertainment with technology, has made investments in several companies doing just that.
Wolpert will announce today that his personal investment company, Westlake Village-based Chase Investments, has taken stakes in six technology and entertainment firms. Three of the companies--Broadcast Vision of Agoura Hills, Kind of Loud Technologies of Santa Cruz and Universal Audio of Santa Cruz--focus on technology for music. Three others--SalesMountain.com of Los Angeles, PrimeLight of Los Angeles and DataSage of Reading, Mass.--provide tools for e-commerce. DataSage was sold last week to Vignette Corp. of Austin for $555 million.
Wolpert had previously helped Yucaipa Cos., the investment company of grocery magnate Ron Burkle and a major investor in CheckOut.com, find hot Internet start-ups such as Beverly Hills-based Scour.net and GameSpy of Costa Mesa. Wolpert will be reducing his involvement with Yucaipa to spend more time with CheckOut.com and his Chase portfolio.
