Q3 2008 Infrastructure Transactions

Clearspring acquires AddThis

Clearspring Technologies, the widget network connecting publishers and advertisers to audiences on the social web, acquired AddThis, the bookmarking and content sharing service on the Internet. Together, Clearspring and AddThis state they will serve over 20 billion views per month and reach more than 200 million unique visitors, creating the most widely used set of content sharing services on the web. Together the companies will offer a comprehensive set of sharing tools for web publishers and end users enabling them to make any content – whether a web page or a standalone application – easily sharable to other web sites, a user’s desktop, or a mobile device. The collective footprint of the combined entity will reach a worldwide audience comparable to the 7th largest web property.

Announcement Date: September 30, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Automattic acquires IntenseDebate

Automattic Inc., the company behind WordPress, has acquired IntenseDebate, provider of an enhanced commenting system. IntenseDebate originally launched to the public in October, 2007, sporting features including OpenID support, user profiles, and the ability to track a user’s comments across multiple blogs. Since launch, the site has seen impressive growth, reporting at least a 25% increase in users each month.

Announcement Date: September 23, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Continuity Engine acquires Continuity Integrators

Continuity Engine, a new company that simplifies regulatory compliance for banks and credit unions, has acquired Continuity Integrators. Continuity Integrators provides thought leadership on revolutionizing continuity and compliance challenges through the use of social networking and collaboration. Continuity Integrators built collaboration platforms leveraging RSS, discussion forums, shared document repositories and tagging to bring full web 2.0 collaboration to the problems that are too often siloed within organizations. The key to this acquisition is the founder Dan Adams, whose vision of using social networking as an engine for transformation within organizations is groundbreaking.

Announcement Date: September 23, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

MTV Networks acquires Social Project

MTV Networks, a division of Viacom, has acquired Social Project, Inc., its partner in building the Flux social media platform. Flux allows users to share and interact with content across a growing network of more than 1,000 entertainment, pop culture and music web sites with more than 7.5 million registered users. Previously, MTVN held a minority stake in Social Project. In developing Flux with Social Project, MTV took a radically different approach by building a media-centric social network that's distributed, yet connected -- and that approach has proven to be very powerful with its audiences. The acquisition marks the next step in the evolution of MTVN's vertical entertainment strategy, as it will enable the company to accelerate the introduction of Flux across its online portfolio and further connect its websites and others through social media tools. MTVN will take a more active role in recruiting new external web publishers to the Flux network. The company will also harness the power of Flux's user data to enable targeting and enhance its Tribes vertical ad network initiative.

Announcement Date: September 22, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Cisco to acquire Jabber

Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately held Jabber, Inc., a provider of presence and messaging software. Jabber specializes in enterprise messaging software. The company's messaging offering supports such products as AOL AIM, Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Sametime and instant messaging software from Google and Yahoo. Jabber will work with Cisco to enhance the existing presence and messaging functions of Cisco's Collaboration portfolio. The acquisition will enable Cisco to embed presence and messaging services 'in the network' and provide rich aggregation capabilities to users through both on-premise and on-demand solutions, across multiple platforms including Cisco WebEx Connect and Cisco Unified Communications. With the acquisition of Jabber, Cisco will be able to extend the reach of its current instant messaging service and expand the capabilities of its collaboration platform.

Announcement Date: September 19, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Tsavo acquires Better, Inc.

Tsavo Media, a new company focused on delivering highly relevant experiences to today's digital consumers, has acquired Better, Inc., a technology-enabled services provider in the search engine marketing sector. The Better acquisition enables Tsavo to take its content monetization technology, paired with Better’s traffic generation services, and provide content publishers with growth and increased revenue, through a single services engagement. Tsavo believes this offering is unique in the market, and will be highly relevant to content web publishers.

Announcement Date: September 16, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Microsoft sells Greenfield Online’s Internet Survey LOB to ZM Capital

Microsoft and Greenfield Online Inc. announced that in connection with the acquisition agreement between the two companies, Microsoft has signed an agreement to sell the Greenfield Online Internet Survey Solutions business to ZM Surveys LLC, an entity affiliated with ZM Capital L.P., a private equity investment partnership focused on entertainment and media investments. ISS collects, organizes and sells consumer and business professional data in the form of diverse and demographically representative survey responses to marketing research companies on a global basis. ISS manages Internet panels, including the Greenfield Online panel in the United States and Canada, and the Ciao Survey panels in Europe and countries in Asia and Latin America, and provides solutions via its Real-Time Sampling capability that recruits survey takers across the Internet in real time. ZM Capital has advised that it intends to keep the Greenfield Online ISS business as a stand-alone, independent, privately-held company. The transaction also represents the first portfolio investment made by ZM Capital.

Announcement Date: September 10, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

iSkoot acquires Social.IM

iSkoot, provider of carrier-friendly mobile VoIP solutions, has acquired Social.IM, the social network IM client. Social.IM has served as an instant web communications desktop platform; there is a clear consumer integration with iSkoot's upcoming suite of web to mobile push services. Social.IM built a customizable desktop application and web service that adds real-time communication and desktop notifications for social networks, online communities, and web sites. This acquisition positions iSkoot to grow beyond mobile VoIP and create a compelling and valuable consumer solution with a growing lineup of web communications that can be integrated and pushed to your phone.

Announcement Date: September 5, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Microsoft to acquire Greenfield Online

Microsoft Corporation is acquiring Greenfield Online, Inc., primarily for its Ciao line of business.  The team at Ciao has built a passionate consumer community based on intuitive technology and extensive merchant relationships that Microsoft believes will deliver incremental benefit to the Microsoft Live Search platform. Further, acquiring one of Europe’s leading price comparison shopping and consumer reviews sites will further extend Microsoft’s search and ecommerce services in Europe.  Greenfield Online’s ISS business has been a cornerstone of the company’s growth and market value. Microsoft has advised Greenfield Online that it has entered into an agreement to sell the assets of Greenfield Online’s Internet Survey Solutions (ISS) business to an unnamed financial buyer. The merger of Greenfield Online and Microsoft and Microsoft’s sale of the ISS business are expected to close simultaneously in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Announcement Date: August 29, 2008
Deal Value: $486 Million (Cash)

Cisco acquires PostPath

Building upon its commitment to provide a comprehensive collaboration portfolio, Cisco is acquiring privately held PostPath, Inc., a provider of innovative email and calendaring software. Based in Mountain View, CA with additional development operations in Sofia, Bulgaria, PostPath will enhance the existing email and calendaring capabilities of Cisco's WebEx Connect collaboration platform. With PostPath's software, Cisco will extend the e-mail and calendar functionality of its flexible software-as-a-service (SaaS)-based collaborative platform that includes instant messaging, voice, video, data, document management and Web 2.0 applications. This combination will enable customers to use collaboration to accelerate business processes, within and between businesses. The acquisition of PostPath complements Cisco’s strategy to develop an integrated collaboration platform.

Announcement Date: August 27, 2008
Deal Value: $215 Million (Cash)

Return Path to acquire Habeas

Return Path, Inc., the largest email deliverability service provider, will acquire its closely held competitor, Habeas, Inc. These two pioneers in email reputation management and deliverability services today joined forces to create a new company that can better address the needs of senders, receivers and consumers to ensure trusted email delivery despite growing online threats. The agreement creates a new, integrated email reputation management and deliverability services provider delivering a variety of comprehensive services to more than 1,500 clients globally. Return Path pioneered email deliverability five years ago, just as Habeas pioneered the third-party whitelist. Combing the complementary approaches helps to ensure trusted email delivery regardless of fraud, spam and virus challenges.

Announcement Date: August 12, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

MICROS Systems acquires Fry

MICROS Systems, Inc., provider of information technology solutions for the hospitality and retail industries, acquired Fry, Inc., an e-commerce design, development, and managed services provider. Adding Fry to the MICROS portfolio enhances its ability to provide customers with advanced e-commerce solutions and technology necessary to operate retail websites. With Fry as part of the portfolio, MICROS can now have a suite of services in place through its MICROS-Retail group to deliver cross-channel solutions allowing its customers to reach consumers at any point where a transaction may take place. While Fry has historically targeted the retail segment, its broad array of e-commerce services is applicable to all of the industries MICROS serves.

Announcement Date: August 12, 2008
Deal Value: $49.7 Million (Cash, assumption of debt, plus potential earnout of $17 million over 23 months)

Patriot Scientific Corp acquires Crossflo Systems

Patriot Scientific Corp is acquiring Crossflo Systems Inc (CS), a provider of data sharing solutions and services. Crossflo Systems develops Internet-based regional data sharing, information exchange, justice system integration and data mapping software to the public sector.

Announcement Date: August 6, 2008
Deal Value: $10 Million (Cash and stock)

Publicis Groupe to acquire Performics Search Marketing Business

Publicis Groupe (France) and Google announced that Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire the Performics search marketing business (Performics) from Google. Performics, one of the leading search marketing services providers, helps to improve the performance of advertisers’ investments and maximize client campaign effectiveness. Its profit-driving suite of marketing solutions includes Performics’ reporting platform, local platform, advanced market expertise and active account management. The acquisition of Performics will enrich Publicis Groupe’s strong search capabilities and strengthen the offering of the VivaKi Nerve Center, a new strategic entity launched by the Groupe last June. VivaKi leverages the collective scale of Digitas, Starcom-MediaVest, Denuo and Zenith-Optimedia to develop new services, tools and partnerships, including new and emerging performance marketing platforms. The addition of Performics will deliver a full and enhanced suite of performance marketing tools and capabilities to Publicis Groupe agencies and their clients.

Announcement Date: August 6, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

CallWave acquires WebMessenger

CallWave, Inc., provider of Internet and mobile-based unified communications solutions, has acquired WebMessenger, Inc., a privately-held enterprise mobile messaging software and services company. WebMessenger provides secure enterprise real-time messaging and presence solutions that enable desktop collaboration with Blackberry, Windows Mobile, S60, iPhone and Palm smart phone devices. CallWave will integrate WebMessenger’s technology into its new FUZE product to enhance its competitive position among unified communications solutions providers.

Announcement Date: August 6, 2008
Deal Value: $9 Million (Cash)

Google acquires Omnisio

Google has acquired Omnisio. This is yet another liquidity event for Y Combinator, which invests small amounts of capital in very early stage companies, usually at the idea stage. Reddit was acquired in late 2006, TextPayMe was bought by Amazon in 2007, and Auctomatic and Anywhere.FM were snapped up earlier this year. The Omnisio service lets users annotate videos, mash various clips up, and synchronize Slideshare presentations to videos (great for conference presentations). Omnisio users can extract sections of clips they find on the web (currently only those on YouTube, Google Video, or Blip.tv). They can then take those clips and stitch them together to form new, embeddable compilations. As of now, Google hasn't disclosed how it plans to integrate this service into Youtube.

Announcement Date: July 30, 2008
Deal Value: $15 Million (Rumor only – Cash)

Quova acquires Verifia

Quova, Inc., provider of Internet geolocation data services, has acquired Verifia Inc., a geolocating software technology company and provider of NetGeo, an IP-based Internet intelligence solution. The move further extends Quova's leadership position in the Internet geolocation market. Quova will integrate NetGeo's analysis and data collection techniques into its world-class Global Data Collection Network. This will mean increased granularity of the Quova data by providing additional data fields, such as cyber cafe locations and end-organization domain name. Quova customers use this information to detect card-not-present fraud, comply with local regulations, and localize online ads and content.

Announcement Date: July 29, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Holtzbrinck acquires Quarter Media

The German publishing group Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH acquired a majority stake in Quarter Media GmbH, a Hamburg-based provider of online marketing services. Founded in 2001, Quarter Media markets 300 websites (among them softonic.de; gamezone.de; skimagazin.de), with a monthly range of 14 million unique users. The company has 23 employees in its Hamburg headquarters and has a sales office in Düsseldorf.

Announcement Date: July 22, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

AdEx Media acquires VibrantAds

AdEx Media, a performance driven online marketing company and provider of online marketing services, has acquired VibrantAds. VibrantAds is a third-generation online advertising technology company that specializes in promotions and affiliate tracking technology. The acquisition and integration of the proprietary VibrantAds technology assets will allow AdEx Media to offer its products and services to the rapidly growing affiliate channel.

Announcement Date: July 22, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Publicis Groupe acquires Portfolio

Publicis Groupe (France) acquired Portfolio, one of Korea's top digital marketing agencies. Portfolio is a pioneer in fully integrated online services, and is widely celebrated for its innovative web-based creativity and commitment to results. Founded in 1998, Portfolio provides complete digital services including website development, website maintenance and marketing, online advertising campaigns, search, database marketing, data tracking, analysis and optimization. Portfolio will become part of Publicis Modem, the digital arm of the Publicis Worldwide global network, and the agency will be rebranded Publicis Modem Korea. Digital advertising in Korea is a thriving market. The acquisition of Portfolio is in line with Publicis Groupe's strategy of targeted acquisitions aimed at expanding its leadership in digital communications and high growth markets.

Announcement Date: July 22, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Google buys Rambler Media Advertising Unit

Google will buy the advertising unit of Russian Internet portal Rambler Media. The unit, called ZAO Begun, is involved in search and contextual text-based advertising services. The number of its advertisers exceeds 40,000, according to the statement. Begun’s partner network includes over 143,000 Russian language sites. Begun reported profits before taxation and minority interest of $3.4 million in the first four months of 2008. Google said that the deal will help it to improve the service it offers users, partners and advertisers in Russia, where digital advertising is currently experiencing rapid growth.

Announcement Date: July 18, 2008
Deal Value: $140 Million (Cash)

ViewPartner Corporation buys PodTech

ViewPartner, a company that owns and operates communication technologies, has bought PodTech Network, the social media company for developing, producing, and distributing podcasts to drive brand engagement for Fortune 1000 companies. The core executive, production and creative team of PodTech remain intact. According to ViewPartner, the PodTech team is what attracted them to this company. ViewPartner believes that PodTech has the platform to drive brand engagement, and the platform will be enhanced with capabilities that just an agency or service organization cannot deliver. PodTech will be the first to deliver HD quality broadcast on the Internet within the next year.

Announcement Date: July 18, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

ConnectEDU acquires Prep HeadQuarters

ConnectEDU, Inc., the web-based provider connecting students with colleges and employers through its integrated college and career planning network, acquired Prep HeadQuarters, a college planning web service deployed in over 700 high schools. High schools that use Prep HeadQuarters for college planning will join the high schools using ConnectEDU's Connect! for managing student, college and career transitions in the ConnectEDU National Network. The combined network of 2,000+ high schools represents the largest "going-to-college-to-career" network in the nation.

Announcement Date: July 17, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

thePlatform acquires Chirp Interactive

thePlatform, the broadband video management and publishing company, has acquired the assets of Chirp Interactive, Inc., a provider of social media applications. Chirp's team has proven expertise in designing rich media applications that integrate with social networking sites. Chirp has launched internet applications that combined social networking with media consumption capabilities. While thePlatform disclosed that it will not continue Chirp's services moving forward, the company said that it will build new community and content discovery features into its media publishing system, leveraging the expertise of Chirp's core product development team.

Announcement Date: July 16, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

ChannelAdvisor acquires RichFX

ChannelAdvisor, provider of e-commerce channel management solutions, acquired RichFX. A leader in the rich media image space. RichFX's rich media solutions have been helping retailers design, implement and manage effective rich media across online channels since its inception in 1997. RichFX has over 200 retailers as customers, including over 45 that are included in the coveted Internet Retailer 500 list. The combined companies will offer three new rich media products for Internet retailers with proven abilities to increase website usability and improve conversion rates with fewer clicks. ChannelAdvisor plans to aggressively offer rich media solutions to its existing customer base. In addition, ChannelAdvisor will extend its ChannelAdvisor Complete e-commerce solutions for search, comparison shopping engines and marketplaces to the existing RichFX customer base.

Announcement Date: July 16, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

IPGA (iProperty Group Asia) acquires majority of Info-Portal Tech International

IPGA Ltd is an Internet software developer headquartered in Australia, operating predominantly in Singapore and Malaysia. The company's main services include developing and operating Internet-based real estate property portals along with other complementary offerings to its key markets. It operates the sites iProperty.com, iluxury.com.my and iProperty.com for the Malaysia Singapore and Philippines markets. The company was founded in 2007. Info-Portal Tech International Co Ltd is an Internet software developer based in Taiwan. It owns a property buying website in Taiwan called VRHouse.com.tw, based in Taipei.

Announcement Date: July 15, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Twitter acquires Summize

Twitter has purchased search engine developer Summize.  The deal would put to use some of its recently acquired $15 million in VC funding the company received from Bezos, and it would help the company develop a business model. Summize has come up with a clever way of peering through Twitter’s vast data stream and finding out what’s hot, where and how. The results are essentially keywords — topic-, person- or location-based — and thus can be used to show contextual advertising next to the pages that show these results. Summize has thereby developed an ability to monetize conversations without being intrusive.

Announcement Date: July 15, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Mobispine acquires NewsAlloy

Mobispine AB (Sweden), an aggregator of news and content for the Mobile Internet, has acquired NewsAlloy, one of the first rich-featured web-based feed reader. Mobispine and NewsAlloy are both innovators in the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) space and hope the companies’ combined technologies and expertise will shake up the market and offer users a seamless product to view personalized news feeds on both mobile phones and PCs. Mobispine now has 300,000+ active mobile users per month, and the acquisition of NewsAlloy will drive momentum and contribute to its goal of reaching 10 million users. NewsAlloy was one of the first RSS readers on the market and has built a loyal following. By combining technologies with Mobispine, they believe they will take the concept of RSS feeds for mobile and PC users to the next level and deliver some of the fastest and easiest to use applications available.

Announcement Date: July 15, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

SNiPiTRON acquires OnlyWire.Com

SNiPiTRON, the Social Research and Networking Platform, acquired OnlyWire.com, a "bookmarklet site" or bookmarking aggregation and syndication platform. This acquisition gives SNiPiTRON 's web-based software enhanced functionality, new customers and an expanded end-user project portfolio. The transaction added over 53,000 registered users as well as more than one million citations or projects. As a "bookmarklet," OnlyWire's technology doesn't actually save your "favorite" page. Users need to drag OnlyWire to their toolbar and when on a site that they want to save, hit the bookmark icon. By pre-registering your OnlyWire sign-in name and password with the bookmarking sites you belong to, OnlyWire's technology will submit your favorite selections to all of those bookmarking sites. SNiPiTRON is the first web-based global tool for the business user to capture information and share it with their network in a professional and easy to use format, bringing value to the web-based networking solutions.

Announcement Date: July 15, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

British Telecom acquires Ufindus

iomart, provider of co-location and managed hosting, announced the sale of its subsidiary Ufindus Limited, a leading internet directory services company to British Telecommunications plc. Ufindus was founded by iomart in 2002, and has grown to be one of the UK’s largest new media directories businesses, providing listing and websites for small and medium sized enterprise customers in the UK. The disposal will allow iomart to focus on its core offering of its managed webhosting business, Easyspace, and its datacentre operations, both of which are expected to perform well in the current market environment.

Announcement Date: July 11, 2008
Deal Value: $39.5 Million (Cash)
Seller Revenue: $28 Million (2007)

JS-Kit acquires HaloScan

JS-Kit, a provider of Javascript comments, ratings, and poll widgets for blogs, has announced their acquisition of HaloScan, one of the largest hosted comments service providers. HaloScan had previously partnered with JS-Kit in January to provide the users of their comment system with “one-click” deployment of JS-Kit’s ratings widget (providing ratings for articles, not ratings for comments). This acquisition will result in an exponential increase of JS-Kit’s customer base, providing new access to over 520,000 participating sites, bringing its total reach to about 550,000 sites.

Announcement Date: July 8, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

ProQuest acquires Dialog

ProQuest is acquiring the Dialog business from Thomson-Reuters. Both companies have complementary products and content which are essential to libraries and serious researchers.  ProQuest provides seamless access to and navigation of more than 125 billion digital pages of the world's scholarship, delivering it to the desktop and into the workflow of serious researchers in multiple fields, from arts, literature, and social science to science, technology, and medicine. ProQuest is part of Cambridge Information Group.

Announcement Date: July 2, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed

Vizrt acquires Escenic

Vizrt Ltd. is acquiring Escenic AS. Escenic is one of the frontrunners in on-line publishing. The move expands Vizrt’s high-end graphics and media asset management systems with Escenic’s array of web products that power hundreds of media sites worldwide. The companies, both Norway-based, began integrating their respective tools over one year ago. This integration allows journalists to search and add video content to online articles, directly from Escenic’s content management system interface.  The solution can later be expanded to IPTV, TV and multichannel production. Similarly, the Vizrt-Escenic integration proposes a viable solution for broadcasters targeting web publishing without duplicating staff. The integration offers three unique benefits: a single interface for the journalist and editor to create and publish professional media content, the ability to reuse video content for future stories, and new revenue model opportunities. Content can be made available, for a fee, for automatic search and download.

Announcement Date: July 2, 2008
Deal Value: Cash $17.8 million, 3 million shares of stock, and undisclosed earnout of approximately 5.5 million shares of stock

Bridgeline Software acquires Indigio

Bridgeline Software, the provider of the iAPPS web content management suite, is continuing their expansion into new markets by acquiring Indigio Group Inc., a web development company with a market presence in Denver, Colorado and the Rocky Mountain region. Indigio is an award-winning web development company that provides web application development, web design, usability and search engine optimization services.

Announcement Date: July 1, 2008
Deal Value: $6 Million

hi5 Networks acquired PixVerse

hi5 Networks, a social network, acquired PixVerse, Inc., an innovative provider of rich, real-time interactions within social networks. Built on its breakthrough Flash-based, no-download virtual world platform, PixVerse developed the popular and highly interactive Pix Chat and Pix Wall applications, which run on hi5 and other social networking services through platform integration. The hi5 service is available in 23 languages, delivering localized content and applications to users worldwide. PixVerse has technology that delivers a very immersive end-user experience. Communicating with friends is one of the primary benefits of hi5, and this technology and team enables hi5 to deliver a much richer, more visual medium of interaction for users of the network.

Announcement Date: July 1, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed