PROFIT Magazine recently published an article on Canadian entrepreneur Lorne Abony. Currently, the CEO of Toronto-based Mood Media Corp., Abony has grown the company to be a leader in the rapidly expanding business of in-store media. Mood Media is also Canada’s Fastest-Growing Company. In 2010, Mood’s sales hit almost US$145 million-up by 72,384% since 2005.
Abony was born in Toronto to immigrant parents, and was raised by a single mom in subsidized housing. His attitude of a Type A achiever along with hard work have made him one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs. Over the course of the years, Abony has acquired some notable claims to fame including being the youngest CEO of a TSX-listed company.
Several of Mood Media’s top people built earlier businesses with Abony-most notably, Andrew Rivkin. Friends since high school, the two have worked together since the mid-’90s, when Abony co-founded online pet supplies retailer Petopia and Rivkin launched Cryptologic, a developer of online gaming software that topped the PROFIT 200 in 2002. They helped each other with those ventures, and when Abony sold Petopia to Petco, he joined Rivkin at Cryptologic. “Whatever our titles, we’re partners,” says Rivkin, who’s officially a consultant to Mood Media but is intimately involved in the business. “Lorne does a better job at the external-facing functions. The numbers-related stuff, I do better.”
Back in 2002, after stepping away from Cryptologic’s management, Abony and Rivkin started a new company developing online card, arcade and other casual games. Five years, five rounds of equity financing and seven acquisitions later, FUN Technologies was the dominant player in the industry, worth almost $500 million when U.S. giant Liberty Media acquired it in 2007.
Throughout the years both Abony and Rivkin have partnered to create multiple successful enterprises.