Fusion Corporate Partners

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-328
 
Acquirer:  Zynga
ACQ Web:  http://www.zynga.com
Other Web Links: Blog,  Twitter
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North America
Description:  Heavily invested in social gaming company, Zynga was founded in July 2007. Best known games are “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars”.
Category:  Social Gaming
Contact 1:  Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO
Contact 2:  Andrew Trader, co-founder
 
Vendor:  Serious Company
Vendor Web:  http://www.seriousbusiness.com
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North America
Description:  Social games developer for the Facebook platform. Headquartered in San Francisco, and backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners, the company combines unique game concepts with rigorous analysis to create highly social games. The flagship game is Friends for Sale! and is played by over 6,000,000 people.
Category: Social Games
Contact 1:  siqi chen, founder and ceo
Contact 2:  alex le, founder and cto
Contact 3:  ryan j. ferrier, coo
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Zynga has agreed to acquire Serious Company. Both are social games developers on Facebook. Zynga has so far raised a huge $219,000 in funding. Analysts expect the sector to produce a number of IPOs this year and have speculated Zynga could raise more than $1 billion in an IPO.
 
Link: Reuters
  
Previous reports about Zynga on FusionDigiNet

• Social game firm Zynga raises $180M from Russian investor DST – 16th December 2009
• Social gaming company Zynga raises $15.18M – 17th November 2009
   
   

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website

 
ACQUISITION – NEWS 

FDN Database Reference:  F231109-326
 
According to BtoB Media Business Canon Communications is in talks to acquire several trade publications from Reed Business Information U.S. Their information comes from “several industry sources”.
 
 The RBI publications may include – Control Engineering, EDN, Design News, Packaging Digest and Test & Measurement World.
 
 Fusion DigiNet has reported on two RBI sales in the past few months:

• Ten Alps Communications Asia acquires websites, events and publications from RBI Asia  1st February 2010
• Newbay Media acquired Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News And Twice from RBI  1st December 2009
   
   
   
   
   

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-325
 
Acquirer:  Google
ACQ Web:  http://www.google.com
Location:  USA, California
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, video sharing
Category:  Search
Contact 1:  Eric E. Schmidt, Chairman & CEO
Contact 2:  Sergey M. Brin, Technology President
Contact 3:  Lawrence E. Page, Products President 
 
Vendor:  Aardvark
Vendor Web:  http://vark.com
Other Web Links: Blog, Facebook
Location:  USA, San Francisco, CA
Region:  North Amerca
Description:  Aardvark was founded in late 2007. According to Aarvark, the company was was conceived as the first Social Search engine: a way to find people, not web pages, that have specific information.

Category: Search
Contact 1:  Max Ventilla, CEO, co founder
Contact 2:  Rob Spiro, Co-Founder
Contact 3:  Damon Horowitz, Co-Founder
Contact 4:  Nathan Stoll, Co-Founder
Aprox. Value:  Approximately $50,000,000
 
Details:  Social search engine Aardvark has been acquired by Google. Aardvark will continue to run over IM and email, on the Aardvark Mobile iPhone app, and on vark.com.The Aardvark team will continue working together within Google.
 
Links: 

• Google Announcement    
• Aardvark Announcement

Related DigiNet entries

• Google is acquiring AppJet, the small startup that builds the popular collaboration tool EtherPad 
• Dynamic ad optimization platform Teracent to be acquired by Google
  

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-324
 
Acquirer:  Herb Simon
Location:  USA, Indianapolis, IN
Region:  North America
Description:  Herb Simon is a business man and owner of the National Basketball Association’s Indiana Pacers and Chairman Emeritus of the Simon Property Group, an S&P 500 corporation.
Category:  Private
Contact 1:  Herb Simon
Contact 2:  Marc Winkelman, will become CEO of Kirkus Media
 
Vendor:  The Nielsen Company
Vendor Web:  http://www.nielsen.com
Business Sold: Kirkus Reviews
Location:  USA, Austin, TX
Region:  North America
Description:  Kirkus Reviews is a prepublication journal of book reviews. The company was founded in 1933. It is published biweekly and reviews, 2 to 3 months before the publication date, approximately 5,000 titles per year: fiction, mysteries, sci-fi, translations, nonfiction, and children’s and young-adult books.
Category: Reviews
Contact 1:  Andy Bilbao, Senior Vice President, Nielsen Business Media
 
Aprox. Value:  Undisclosed
 
Details:  Kirkus Reviews, the prepublication journal of book reviews, has been acquired by businessman Herb Simon from The Nielsen Company. Kirkus Media will be headed by Marc Winkelman, who is CEO of Calendar Holdings, a specialty retailer in which Simon has an interest. Herb Simon andMarc Winkelman also co-own Tecolote Books, an independent bookstore in Montecito, California.
 
Link: Kirkus Reviews Announcement

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
ACQUISITION 
FDN Database Reference:  F231109-323
 
Acquirer:  CME Group
ACQ Web:  http://www.cmegroup.com
Location:  USA, Chicargo, IL
Region:  North America
Description:  CME Group is an equity index derivatives marketplace, offering futures and options on key benchmark indexes that cover the spectrum of small-, medium- and large-cap indexes in the U.S., Europe and Asia, including the DJIA as well as the S&P 500, NASDAQ-100, Nikkei 225 Stock Average, MSCI EAFE, FTSE/Xinhua China 25.
Category:  Finance, Derivatives
Contact 1:  Terry Duffy, CME Group Executive Chairman
Contact 2:  Craig Donohue, CME Group Chief Executive Officer  
 
Vendor:  News Corporation
Vendor Web:  http://www.newscorp.com 
Location:  USA, New York, NY
Region:  North America
Business Sold: A controlling stake in Dow Jones Indexes
Description:  Dow Jones & Company is a News Corporation company (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) and a leading provider of global news and business information. Its principal products include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Barron’s, MarketWatch and Dow Jones Indexes. Its Local Media Group operates community-based newspapers and Web sites. Dow Jones also provides news content to television and radio stations.
Category: Finance, media owner
Contact 1:  Les Hinton, chief executive officer of Dow Jones

Details:  

CME Group and Dow Jones have signed a definitive agreement in which CME Group will take a 90 percent ownership interest and Dow Jones will take a 10 percent ownership interest in a new joint venture that will own the Dow Jones Indexes.

Dow Jones will contribute the Dow Jones Indexes business, valued at $675 million, to the joint venture.  CME Group will contribute certain market data services, valued at $607.5 million, to the joint venture.  The venture also will raise approximately $613 million in third-party debt which will be used to pay a $607.5 million distribution to Dow Jones.

Terms of the agreement provide for the joint venture to license the Dow Jones name for the new index services business on a long-term basis.  Ownership of the Dow Jones brand, including trademarked names, will remain with Dow Jones.  The managing editor of The Wall Street Journal will continue to participate in decisions regarding constituent stock selection for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other index products.

The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2010.
 
Links: 

• News Corporation Announcement
• CME Group Announcement
   
   
  Advisors: Barclays Capital is acting as financial advisor to CME Group, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP is acting as CME Group’s legal advisor

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
FUND RAISING 
Database Reference:  F231109-351
 
Business:  LIKEME
Web:  http://likeme.net
Other Web Links: Twitter  Facebook, YouTube
Location:  USA, Denver, CO
Region:  North America
Business description:  Search website that provides recommendations from people who like thesame things.
Category: Search
Contact 1:   Jeff Giarraputo, President & CEO
Contact 2:  BIll Jensen, Director (also Director of New Media at Village Voice Media) Linkedin
 
Investors:  Undisclosed
  
Amount raised:  $3,124,997
 
Details:  According to an SEC filing, LIKEME has raised $3.125 million.

Link:  Regulatory Filing

The Fusion Team have completed over 70 digital and media transactions for its private, corporate and private equity clients. For more information contact pkelly@fusioncorp.co.uk or visit our website
 
 
FUND RAISING 
Database Reference:  F231109-350
 
Business:  iFolio
Web:  http://ifollo.com
Other Web Links: Facebook, Twitter 
Location:  USA, Park City, UT
Region:  North America
Business description:  interactive, online, fan-based community that enables people to share personal celebrity experiences, photos and video.
Category: Consumer website
Contact 1:  Colin House, CEO, iFolio
 
Investors:  Robert Trump, president, Trump Management

Amount raised:  $1,000,000
 
Details:  iFollo.com has announced a $1 million investment from investor Robert S. Trump.

Link:  Press Release