Digital River ran the online stores of many large software brands, out of sight behind their names. In 1998 software still sold mostly in boxes on store shelves. The Minneapolis company believed it would soon arrive over the internet. It built and ran stores for software publishers, handled payments, and delivered the software as a download. It also ran a network of resellers that sold those products on their own sites. Digital River went public in August 1998.

Handing Off the Hard Parts

Joel Ronning founded Digital River in 1994. The bet was that software makers would rather hand off e-commerce than build it, and that downloads would replace boxes. Digital River took a cut of each sale and handled the hard parts: payment, fraud, taxes, and delivery. Publishers got a ready-made store without building one themselves. Later it served game makers, electronics brands, and other companies selling directly online.

Saved by Transactions, Then Shut

Digital River priced its offering at $8.50 a share in August 1998, and the stock rose sharply in the boom. It survived the crash because its revenue came from transactions. Siris Capital took Digital River private in 2015 for about $840 million. In 2024 it stopped paying many of the merchants whose software it sold. In early 2025 it closed its Minnesota offices and began winding down its operations.

Cover: Mill Stream, Donald Shaw MacLaughlan. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a mill stream (the digital river).