Local Entrepreneurs Launch Parent Company to Unite Fast-Growing Businesses

Local Entrepreneurs Launch Parent Company to Unite Fast-Growing Businesses

Matter Worldwide Focuses on Innovative Business Models Across Music, Education, Marketing and Journalism

MINNEAPOLIS, Dec. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Four local entrepreneurs have launched Matter Worldwide, a parent company with a mission to create viable businesses through creativity, innovation and sound business practices.

Matter Worldwide consists of two wholly owned subsidiaries: Rumble Music, a full-service music studio, and GoKart Labs, a digital innovation lab, and two joint ventures: BringMeTheNews, a pioneering online and broadcast news aggregator, and Sophia, a social teaching platform that is now in private development.

Matter was founded by four partners: Don Smithmier, AJ Meyer, Rick Meyer and Jess Ford. Smithmier is a former Capella Education Company executive and CEO of Sophia, AJ Meyer is an interactive agency authority and leader of GoKart Labs. Rick Meyer, creative director of Rumble, and Ford, Rumble executive producer, are award-winning studio veterans in the field of creating original music for a variety of media.

"My partners and I share a culture of collaboration and intelligent creativity, that's really the tie that binds the work we do," said Smithmier, managing partner and co-founder of Matter Worldwide. "We wanted this family of businesses together under one roof because good things happen when you mix this diversity of talent, energy and resources with opportunity."

Rumble Music, which started in March 2008, and GoKart Labs, launched March 2009, have been profitable each year of operation and continue to grow. Rumble plans to open a Los Angeles office in 2011, and the two companies have tripled the number of employees each year since launch.

In September 2009, Matter Worldwide became equity partners in BringMeTheNews. Other BringMeTheNews stakeholders include founder Rick Kupchella, The Dolan Company and Padilla Speer Beardsley. In April 2010, Matter launched Sophia as a joint venture with an outside strategic investor. BringMeTheNews and Sophia both successfully raised venture capital in 2010, and like Matter's wholly owned units, are poised for expansion and rapid growth.

For more information, go to www.matterworldwide.com.

About Matter Worldwide

Matter Worldwide is the corporate parent of Rumble, a full-service music studio; BringMeTheNews, Rick Kupchella's pioneering news curation business; GoKart Labs, a digital innovation laboratory; and the yet-to-be launched Sophia, a groundbreaking social teaching platform that harnesses the web's social and collaborative power to supplement and ultimately transform how we can teach and learn. Matter is unique for its emphasis on a shared culture, belief in collaboration, and lack of bureaucratic layer and traditional corporate inefficiencies. The core of Matter is about marrying successful business practices with creative endeavor, and applying new thinking to old models. For more information, go to www.matterworldwide.com.

SOURCE Matter Worldwide

Matter Worldwide

CONTACT: Teresa McFarland, +1-952-440-6084, tmcfarland@mcfarlandcahill.com for Matter Worldwide

Web Site: http;//www.matterworldwide.com

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