Destra Corporation

History

Domenic Carosa and Anna Carosa founded Destra Corporation in 1993. The Carosas were teenagers when they conceived the concept, which they originally called Sprint. Initially, the company owned entertainment websites in Australia and formed Ozhosting.com in 1995 to provide hosting to small businesses. Sprint Corporation purchased a number of smaller Australian-based hosting companies over the next couple of years to increase its market share in the hosting market. This included BlueFire and GlobalHost, which operated under the OzHosting.com brand.

In 2000, Sprint was rebranded as Ehyou to expand into other online fields besides hosting. This included the purchase of mp3.com.au, an online music and digital downloads site. Over the next couple of years, Destra expanded its hosting offerings geographically through acquisitions of Cyberhost, lasiaworks, and Ocean Internet's hosting division. Destra also acquired Webtrader in January 2001 to further diversify its services. The company was then integrated under its OzHosting subsidiary, making the hosting brand the second largest retail hosting company in Australia. During 2002, Destra continued to acquire hosting companies, including Enet21 and SuperHosting, and a 60% controlling interest in TPP Internet, which was one of Australia's largest domain name registrars at the time.

In 2004, the OzHosting brand was shelved, and OzHosting and Techex merged to form Destra. The same year, Destra won the PowerTel Partner of the Year award. Within a year, the company reached a partnership agreement with Yahoo! to create a new suite of services that would be integrated into its subsidiary, OzHosting. In 2005, Destra reported revenue of over $15 million, up 73% from the previous year, with revenues of $15.739 million, up 73 percent.

In 2006, Destra was the largest digital music provider in Australia, with more than 1.3 million tracks in its online music catalogue. At the time, the company was developing advertising revenue streams across its websites.

Destra was greatly affected by the collapse of Opes Prime in 2008. In 2007–2008, Destra lost $76.9 million, having made 13 acquisitions in the previous three years. In November 2008, Destra's divisions were sold in administration to companies including Fremantle Media; Central Station Records; Brand New Media; Eddie MacGuire's Visual Entertainment Group; and Dominet Digital.

References

References

1. Ryan, Paul. (1 October 2008). "What I Have Learnt (the hard way)". Australian Anthill.
2. (2007-11-16). "Destra (DES) 25c". [[The Australian]].
3. (23 April 2008). "Destra chief Dominic Carosa sacked". Herald Sun.
4. (26 March 2010). "Another punt on net value: second dotcom boom". [[The Australian]].
5. (March 2008). "'Jack of all trades' becomes media master". Swineburne University.
6. (1 October 2008). "What I have learnt (the hard way) – Domenic Carosa". Anthill Online.
7. (20 May 2013}}{{Dead link). "Destra Acquires Controlling Interest in TPP Internet One of Australia's Largest Domain Name Registrars". TopHosts.
8. (23 February 2005). "destra launches destra Business & wins PowerTel Partner of the Year award". CSO.com.au.
9. (18 May 2004). "Destra, Yahoo! add new features for SMEs". [[ZDNet]].
10. (12 September 2005). "Destra Corporation reports maiden full year profit". IT Wire.
11. Destra. (11 January 2006). "destra Music - largest digital music provider in Australia". PC Word.
12. (4 September 2006). "Destra buys ad company for $12m". Fairfax Media.
13. (5 April 2008). "Little-known Opes, spectacular failure". [[The Australian]].
14. (23 April 2008). "Destra board suffers Opes fallout". [[The Australian]].
15. (20 February 2013). "Directors refusing appointments and considering resigning because of red tape and liability: Research". Smart Company.
16. Thomson, James. (26 August 2008). "Destra slumps to big loss and slams former CEO Dominic Carosa's strategy". Smart Company.
17. (13 November 2008). "Destra in voluntary administration". Fairfax Media.
18. Thomson, James. (14 November 2008). "Destra placed in administration. What went wrong?". Smart company.
19. (20 July 2011). "Burnt but cool with the outcome". [[The Australian]].