Digital River, Inc. was a privately held company headquartered in

Minnetonka, Minnesota Minnetonka ( ) is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. A western suburb of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Twin Cities, Minnetonka is located about west of Minneapolis. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city's popu ...

that provides global

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

, payments and marketing services. In 2013, Digital River reported having processed more than

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

30 billion in online transactions.

History

Joel Ronning founded Digital River in February 1994. The company began trading as DRIV on the

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

stock exchange on August 11, 1998. Joel Ronning stepped down as CEO in November 2012 after the company reported multiple quarters of losses. In February 2013, Dave Dobson was named CEO. In late 2014, Siris Capital acquired the company for $840 million. The acquisition was completed in 2015, with Digital River being delisted from Nasdaq after February 13. In July 2018, Adam Coyle was named CEO, with Dobson becoming Vice Chairman of the Board. Coyle had previously been on the board since 2015, and worked as an executive partner with Digital River's private equity owner, Siris Capital. In January 2020, Christopher Bernander was named CFO. Barry Kasoff was named CEO in the summer of 2024. Kasoff is also president of a consulting firm specializing in corporate

turnaround management Turnaround management is a process dedicated to corporate renewal. It uses analysis and planning to save troubled companies and return them to solvency, and to identify the reasons for failing performance in the market, and rectify them. Turnaround ...

Acquisitions and divestitures

In 1999, Digital River acquired Simtel from California-based company Walnut Creek CDROM Inc. The company acquired Orbit Commerce and RegSoft.com in 2001. CCNow and Freemerchant.com were acquired in 2002. Digital River acquired SWReg in 2005 for a reported $8.8 million. Other acquisitions include: *eSellerate (2006) *THINK Subscription (2008) *Journey Education Marketing (2010) *Fatfoogoo (2010) *CCNow (sold to Snorrason Holdings in 2012) *Journey Education Marketing (2013)

Downturn and insolvency

In late 2024, merchants using Digital River's MyCommerce platform reported that they had not been paid money owed by Digital River since that July. Digital River disputed their claims of debts being owed. On January 28, 2025, Digital River began the process of shutting down, citing insolvency due to multiple factors. They stated that all employees at their Minnesota offices would be laid off effective March 28, 2025 and that their German subsidiaries were also being shuttered. In May of 2025, Digital River filed

Chapter 7 bankruptcy Chapter 7 of Title 11 U.S. Code is the bankruptcy code that governs the process of liquidation under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. This is in contrast to bankruptcy under Chapter 11 and Chapter 13, which govern the process of ''re ...

Security breaches

A security breach in 2010 resulted in nearly 200,000 customers' data being stolen. Digital River sued a man who tried to sell the data. In October 2017, after Digital River had decommissioned the FireClick platform and released the domain in 2016, the websites for

Equifax Equifax Inc. is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency headquartered in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia and is one of the three largest consumer credit reporting agency, consumer credit reporting agencies, along with Experian and T ...

and for

TransUnion TransUnion LLC is an American consumer credit reporting agency. TransUnion collects and aggregates information on over one billion individual consumers in over thirty countries including "200 million files profiling nearly every credit-active co ...

's Central American division were reported to have been redirecting visitors to websites that attempted

drive-by download In computer security, a drive-by download is the unintended download of software, typically Malware, malicious software. The term "drive-by download" usually refers to a download which was authorized by a user without understanding what is being ...

s of malware disguised as

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

updates. The attack had been performed by hijacking third-party

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data, which also falls under and directly relates to the umbrella term, data sc ...

JavaScript from FireClick.

References

External links

DigitalRiver.com
{{Software digital distribution platforms Software companies based in Minnesota Companies based in Minnetonka, Minnesota American companies established in 1994 American companies disestablished in 2025 Software companies established in 1994 Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Online financial services companies of the United States Online payments Multinational companies headquartered in the United States 2015 mergers and acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States Companies that filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2025