Deutsche Boerse buys Market News International
German stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse is acquiring U.S.-based online financial news agency Market News International from China's Xinhua Finance. The acquisition would expand its real-time information offerings for financial markets. Market News International has a staff of 85 employees at 12 locations in Europe, Asia and the United States.
Announcement Date: December 22, 2008
Deal Value: $10 Million
Shaker Recruitment acquires CareerSite
Shaker Recruitment Consultants, a division of Shaker Recruitment Advertising & Communications, acquired CareerSite, a website platform that provides private-label recruitment sites for traditional and non-traditional media nationwide. For the past five years, Shaker Recruitment Consultants has provided recruitment services to media publishers across the United States, utilizing the CareerSite technology to power its numerous local boards. For over ten years, CareerSite’s powerful online recruitment solution provided its clients the tools necessary to build, grow and maintain a successful career center while capturing their share of the billion-dollar e-recruiting market. This includes software, hosting, customer service, billing and merchant services, job content, integrated access to a marketplace of leading solutions, and distribution. Shaker’s vast experience in the recruitment marketing arena and CareerSite’s leading technology will bring a complete solution to the marketplace, as well as offer publishers additional recruitment advertising services that before were not possible.
Announcement Date: December 19, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Daily Mail and General Trust acquire majority in Poznanici.com
Daily Mail and General Trust acquired a majority stake in Poznanici.com, a Serbian social network. Poznanici.com is a rather popular social network in Serbia as it has over 100 thousand registered users from Serbia and other ex-Yugoslavian counties and gets more than 85,000 unique visits and 1.5 million views daily.
Announcement Date: December 19, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Gale acquires HighBeam
Educational publisher Gale has bought HighBeam Research to further its development in user experience. HighBeam has long been a content provider for the Cengage Learning subsidiary, so Gale calls the acquisition a “natural extension of its user-focused strategy.” HighBeam, which is best known for its Research Library and online reference site, Encycopledia.com, will remain based in Chicago. Farmington Hills, Mich.-based Gale also has UK and Malaysian offices, and its major brands include article database InfoTrac and e-book platform Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Announcement Date: December 15, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
IK Investment Partners sells Wehkamp
IK Investment Partners (“IK”, formerly known as Industri Kapital) has sold Wehkamp, the market
leader in online shopping in the Netherlands, to a group of undisclosed private investors. IK will retain a minority interest in Wehkamp. IK acquired Wehkamp, together with the credit management company Transfair, from the UK retailer GUS plc in January 2006, with the plan to further grow and develop both businesses and capitalize on IK’s experience in the home shopping, consumer credit and debt collection markets. The business continues to be driven by the strong growth in online retailing. Wehkamp has grown into the largest and most highly rated online retailer in the Netherlands.
Announcement Date: December 12, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
CANCOM acquires Home of Hardware
CANCOM IT Systeme AG acquired 75.5 percent of the shares in Home of Hardware GmbH & Co. KG based in Westendorf near Augsburg, Germany. Home of Hardware is one of the leading e-tailers in the IT sector. With a workforce of around 85, Home of Hardware is expected to achieve sales of around EUR 80 million in 2008 through its web shop www.hoh.de. The CANCOM Group, formed in 1992, is a leading provider of IT infrastructure and professional services. Against the background of an economic crisis, CANCOM sees good opportunities in the e-tailer business due to increased price awareness among customers.
Announcement Date: December 12, 2008
Deal Value: Symbolic purchase price of €3. (Put and call options with earnings-based purchase prices were agreed for the remaining 24.5 percent of the shares in Home of Hardware GmbH & Co. KG.)
RealEstate.com acquires New Homes Realty
RealEstate.com acquired the assets of New Homes Realty, Inc. New Homes Realty is an online real estate company operating in 11 metro areas across the country and utilizing a network of approximately 200 licensed real estate agents and brokers. In addition, the company developed a family of web sites, including its flagship NewHomes.com, to provide interested home shoppers a database of thorough real estate information for new and existing homes. The purchase will expand RealEstate.com, REALTORS in its existing 14 markets, as well as enable the company to grow into six new areas including Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Texas, and the Washington, DC/Capital region. In addition, New Homes Realty's family of web sites will now be run by RealEstate.com. The acquisition also allows RealEstate.com to add another lead generation component to its growing real estate portfolio, which already includes iNest, a leading real estate broker specializing in newly-constructed homes.
Announcement Date: December 8, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Vizimo acquires TIOTI.com
Next generation guidance company, Vizimo, has acquired TIOTI, the popular, interactive, TV social networking website. Vizimo plans to use TIOTI as a shop window in which to pioneer, demonstrate and test new functionality and tools that tie together TV, the web and, increasingly, mobile devices. TIOTI – an acronym for ‘Tape It Off The Internet’ - launched in Spring 2007 to considerable media interest and has attracted a substantial, loyal user base since then. In the same period, Vizimo has been quietly developing ‘next generation guidance’ solutions: intelligent, interactive, guidance technology that enables viewers to find, discover, manage and watch TV or video programs that they are interested in. Vizimo’s solutions make use of sources that include broadcast TV, on-demand and catch-up services, Internet TV and mobile video services, and are designed to engage viewers with a genuinely personalized guide that works coherently across TV, web and mobile. TIOTI’s approach proved to be innovative and it made significant strides in terms of the social aspects of content discovery and guidance. This is a great fit with Vizimo’s approach to content discovery which relies on Vizimo’s underlying technology for content analysis. The TIOTI proposition will be able to use Vizimo’s technology to enhance its proposition, while Vizimo will be able to extend the range of capabilities on offers to partners through leveraging some of TIOTI’s social capabilities.
Announcement Date: December 5, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
AssetNation, Inc. acquires AssetAuctions
AssetNation, Inc., a Spire Capital company, acquired AssetAuctions LLC. AssetAuctions is the leading provider of asset recovery, appraisal and inventory online auction services for the industrial, commercial and government markets. AssetNation already has some of the strongest brands in the online auction community which include SalvageSale, SalvageSale Ltd (UK), CapitalAssetSale, and now AssetAuctions and AssetAuctions de Mexico. This acquisition brings expanded service offerings and signals a commitment to expanding the AssetNation footprint internationally. The acquisition of AssetAuctions demonstrates Spire Capital’s continued commitment to grow AssetNation, both organically as well as via select strategic acquisitions.
Announcement Date: December 2, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
IB3 Networks acquires NYC Mags
iB3 Networks, Inc and its wholly owned subsidiary iBeam Solutions, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a Cisco Certified Select Partner, is acquiring NYC Mags, Inc. the owner of MadisonAvenueMatch.com. MadisonAvenueMatch.com, a development stage website expected to launch in first quarter of 2009, is an upscale online dating web-based service focused on New York City men and women, with busy careers, looking for someone special in their lives. This site is expected to attract immediate membership by offering a complimentary 30-day trial, and access to private mixer events. MadisonAvenueMatch.com will offer its new members the ability to upgrade with a vast array of membership options. The online dating business is a multi-billion dollar industry, with plenty of room for growth for new niche sites. MadisonAvenueMatch.com will be iB3's ticket into the game.
Announcement Date: November 19, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
College Fanz Sports Network acquires Victory Sports Network
College Fanz Sports Network has acquired the Victory Sports Network, the dominant voice of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). This is an opportunity for the Victory Sports Network and the thousands of fans of NAIA schools that have made VSN successful to expand the coverage and awareness of the nearly 300 small college sports programs. The acquisition continues the vision of College Fanz to become the single source for scores and information from over 1,450 colleges and universities in the United States. Fanz can post videos, photographs, and comment on their favorite teams and schools, participate in contests, and communicate with other fans in a compelling and ever-growing social network.
Announcement Date: November 17, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
PriveCo acquires Vibesales
Privately owned PriveCo, which specializes in retailing “embarrassing” products online, has acquired the domain name vibrators.com from Vibesales . PriveCo began selling private things out of a spare bedroom on a website called ShopInPrivate.com back in 1998, and has steadily grown to an operation with 12 separate retail sites whose warehouse ships 1500+ packages per week. The domain name offers them an instantly recognizable name tied to products that people want to buy in complete privacy. PriveCo has been running Vibrators.com since 2002, essentially leasing the domain from someone else.
Announcement Date: November 12, 2008
Deal Value: $1 Million (The deal was $200,000 down and $800,000 at 8% over an undisclosed “fairly short term”)
Canal Partners acquires Limos.com
Canal Partners, a private equity firm, has acquired a majority stake in privately-held online ground transportation services company Limos.com. Founded in 1997, Limos.com is a pioneer in the lead generation industry and a premier provider of qualified leads for licensed transportation providers. Limos.com offers free limo and other ground transportation quotes in all major U.S. metropolitan markets and nearly two dozen countries including the U.K., Australia, Germany, Mexico, France and Italy. With more than 5 million unique visitors in 2007, Limos.com is the highest-ranking website in terms of Internet traffic for those searching for ground transportation.
Announcement Date: November 11, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Aristotle International acquires CompleteCampaigns.com
Aristotle International, an industry leader and pioneer in political technology solutions, announced its acquisition of California-based CompleteCampaigns.com, which provides web-based campaign management tools to political clients. Aristotle's acquisition of CompleteCampaigns.com creates the largest, non-partisan provider of campaign technology in the political marketplace serving more than 2,000 clients in 50 states, from local level to federal races. The acquisition aligns some of the industry's strongest software brands and political technologies for managing campaigns. The move also accelerates Aristotle's plan to expand its industry-leading data platforms and suite of political software with new web-based technologies and mobile applications for campaign professionals and voters alike.
Announcement Date: November 7, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Everything Furniture buys online retail competitor Kelley Furniture
EverythingFurniture.com does its second successful acquisition in two years, taking out another competitor. Last year the company successfully finished its acquisition of FurnitureParadise.com, and now gets another successful acquisition by adding KelleyFurniture.com to its stable of web properties. In a very challenging furniture industry environment, EverythingFurniture.com has dodged the hard times felt among most of the furniture industry by actually having growth in sales and profits while big chain stores like Levitz and Wickes among others have shuttered their doors and no longer exist. By adding the two acquisitions, EverythingFurniture.com spreads its online presence and at the same time takes out important competitors.
Announcement Date: November 7, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Babbel.com scoops up UK-based foreign language social network FriendsAbroad.com
Berlin-based language learning site Babbel, which won an undisclosed round of funding from German VCs KIZOO and VC-Fonds three months ago, has acquired FriendsAbroad, the older UK-based language community startup. Under the deal, FriendsAbroad will be closed after six months and its 500,000+ users encouraged to transfer to Babbel over that time.The courses offered by Babbel will appeal to FriendsAbroad’s existing community and they “don’t have plans” to roll up any other langauage sites in Europe after this deal. The significance of this is that Lesson Nine, the Berlin-based company behind Babbel, will now find itself the significant player in the growing online language learning market. So far it concentrates on offering free courses in French, Spanish, Italian, German or English. It’s clear that although Babbel had already acquired 100,000 users, it still needed to scale faster after only launching in January this year. FriendsAbroad has been around for the last four years and been mainly an online community for making contact with other language learners and hasn’t concentrated on the multimedia courses Babbel offers.
Announcement Date: November 6, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Reunion.com and Wink merge
Reunion.com, a people search service, and Wink, the people search engine, have merged to form a comprehensive online platform for people looking to find each other on the web. An entirely new brand and web site will launch early next year to cement the unique positioning of this joint company as the leader in people search, providing users with access to a combined total of more than 700 million profiles that span social networks, online communities, and other proprietary sources. The recent explosion of social networks has created a multitude of options for people to establish online identities – making it that much more challenging to find people you’re looking for. The new joint company will leverage its wide array of cutting-edge technologies to search the entire web and across networks to help you find everyone – no matter what sites they are using.
Announcement Date: November 3, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
SheKnows acquires Babyhold
SheKnows.com, one of the fastest growing online destinations for women and a part of AtomicOnline, acquired BabyHold.com. BabyHold also features diversified lists of baby names by origin, uniqueness, meaning, and popularity, as well as an advanced search tool allowing users to store and rank the names from their search results. The site serves as a community for mothers-to-be and is designed to fit in with SheKnows’ stable of other recent additions, including PregnancyAndBaby.com, PregnancyFashion.com and ChefMom.com.
Announcement Date: October 30, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
KillerStartups.com acquires Startups.com
KillerStartups.com, which operates one of the most highly-read blogs dedicated to Internet startups, announced the acquisition of Startups.com and the launch of the Startups.com Network, a proprietary network of business sites focused on services and content for entrepreneurs and business executives. Founded by Argentinean Internet entrepreneurs, KillerStartups, which reaches over 1.5 million visitors per month, provides insightful reviews on Internet startups and receives hundreds of daily submissions. Being profitable helps KillerStartups to be aggressive, and plans to look at other acquisitions in the business category. Startups.com Network plans to launch several other sites before the end of 2008 and is actively seeking business-related sites to acquire.
Announcement Date: October 30, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
U.S. Auto Parts acquires AutoMD
U.S. Auto Parts, an online provider of aftermarket auto parts and accessories, has taken another step in providing drivers with premier car service and repair advice by acquiring the assets of AutoMD.com, a provider of online auto diagnosis and repair technology. According to the company, consumers are hungry for an advocate who will ensure they don't over pay to maintain and restore the health of their vehicle. The acquisition of AutoMD positions U.S. Auto Parts to be that consumer advocate. Over the next year, U.S. Auto Parts will enhance the existing site and build out the technology required to ensure vehicle owners have an advocate. Once fully developed, the website will enable a vehicle owner to input information about the symptoms of a car's ailment, and ultimately arrive at a diagnosis and prescription for repair.
Announcement Date: October 28, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
American Media acquires Radar Online
AMI has acquired the website RadarOnline.com, a brand that looks to be re-launched as a more serious news venture about pop culture. AMI announced they are partnering with Integrity Multimedia Company in creating a new company, Radar Online LLC. Integrity Multimedia will make a multi-million dollar investment in RadarOnline.com to launch it as the ultimate destination for breaking celebrity news and cutting edge pop culture. RadarOnline.com will be supported by the AMI news organization and its network of hundreds of news gatherers and thousands of sources. In addition, the Radar Online site will also have its own staff of editors, reporters, photographers and videographers.
Announcement Date: October 27, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Modavox to acquire TalkZone.com
Modavox, an Internet broadcasting pioneer and holder of several patented technologies, is acquiring TalkZone (www.talkzone.com). TalkZone.com is part of Syndication Networks Corporation, a syndicator of quality terrestrial radio programs to over 1,700 over-the-air radio stations and 90% of rated U.S. markets across North America. The company has been in business since 1993, with an established online presence since 1996. Consistently No. 1 ranked on Google for radio syndication, Syndication Networks offers a wide array of brand name radio shows. The synergies between Modavox’s VoiceAmerica and World Talk Internet radio networks and TalkZone are numerous. Most importantly, the acquisition of TalkZone will allow the company to offer syndication to its existing hosts, a value that materially enhances their already impressive distribution capabilities.
Announcement Date: October 23, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
City Capital acquires NittyGrittyMarketing.com
City Capital Corporation has purchased NittyGrittyMarketing.com, a subscription-based online forum, social network, and training network where members learn 'All Things Internet Marketing.' Included in the purchase of NittyGrittyMarketing.com are 50-hours of digital content, video, training materials, searchable digital content, 38 domain names, 10,000+ person mailing list, more than 3,000 subscribers, and nearly 2,000 affiliate marketers. The acquisition allows City Capital to leverage its capital to mentor and foster an environment not only for aspiring entrepreneurs, but also to serve as an incubator for developing companies and future additions to its diversified portfolio.
Announcement Date: October 23, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Hollywood.com acquires Media by Numbers
Hollywood.com announced the acquisition of Media by Numbers, the complete destination for box office data information and expert analysis. Current Media by Numbers President, Paul Dergarabedian, will be joining the Hollywood.com team as part of the deal. Media by Numbers (MBN) focuses on monitoring and providing in-depth analysis on the film industry and, specifically, box-office trends.
Announcement Date: October 13, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
ProSiebenSat.1 Group acquires Webnews.de
ProSiebenSat.1 Group has acquired a majority interest in Webnews.de, a news platform that pools professional news from various online media with user-generated content. The Group has acquired 67.6 percent of the platform, with the option to acquire the entire portal at a later date. With 26 free TV networks, 24 pay TV networks, and 22 radio networks in 13 European countries, the ProSiebenSat.1 Group is one of the continent’s leading media corporations. Webnews was founded in Cologne by Stefan Vosskötter and Thorsten Lüttger in November 2006. Its goal has always been to establish a news platform that enables users to interact in new ways with news on the web.
Announcement Date: October 13, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Triton Distribution acquires ZTS
Triton Distribution Systems, a provider of electronic distribution of travel inventory from airlines, car rental companies, etc., has acquired ZTS, a leading European travel distributor selling both software and services related to travel reservations and other types of bookings, car rental, ocean cruises and tour packages.
Announcement Date: October 10, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
MIH Internet Europe B.V acquires iEurope’s Online Marketplace
MIH Internet Europe B.V., a subsidiary of Naspers Limited, has acquired iEurope Capital LLC’s Vatera.hu Kft (Hungary). The lead investor and majority owner, iEurope Fund LLC, also confirmed that the purchase includes the non-Hungarian operations as well. Vatera.hu is Hungary's leading online auction and e-commerce marketplace. Voted Hungary's e-Commerce Company of the Year in both 2006 and 2007, Vatera.hu was also recognized by Red Herring magazine as one of the top 100 technology companies in the EMEA region in 2007 and 2008. The U.S.-based private equity fund looks for opportunities in other sectors that are benefiting from the economic convergence of CEE countries with their more developed EU counterparts and from the increasing consumer affluence of Central and Eastern Europe.
Announcement Date: October 9, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
LeBlanc Global buys Embarksites.com
LeBlanc Global, an online media and marketing network, has acquired Embarksites.com, a network of online media sites focused on the retail and e-commerce sectors.
Announcement Date: October 8, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed
Hubert Burda Media acquires womensnet.de
Hubert Burda Media, one of Germany’s biggest media companies, has acquired womensnet.de, the life style portal for women, from Henkel AG & Co. Womensnet.de registered more than 2 million page impressions and 140,000 unique users. Besides the entrance for Germany, Switzerland and Austria, womensnet also has a European version published in English under womensnet.com.
Announcement Date: October 7, 2008
Deal Value: Undisclosed