Bigpoint takes over the development team of 49Games GmbH

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Browser-based online game provider Bigpoint is immediately taking over the entire production team of development studio 49Games. More than 40 full-time employees will now become part of Bigpoint’s international team and will be developing online games instead of console titles. The current projects under development in 49Games will be completed by the production team. Aside from the production team, all rights to their multiplatform technology, assets, licenses etc. remain the property of 49Games GmbH.

Bigpoint will concentrate solely on the development of online and mobile games in the future. The expertise of the recently taken-over developers will be put to use on upcoming Unity 3D projects.

“The team at 49Games is one of the best development teams in the console sports-games industry. We’re very excited to add them to the Bigpoint team for our online games,” explains Heiko Hubertz, CEO and founder of Bigpoint. “Together with our development team, we’re going to continue our mission to deliver our users top-quality gaming fun.”

“I’m very pleased with Bigpoint’s acquisition of our development team and I’m confident that the team will deliver fantastic 3D MMOs for the quickly growing international online company,” claims Jan-Hendrik Ohl, CEO of 49Games GmbH.

After the takeover and merger of Radon Labs and Elofd in Berlin last year and the purchase of Planet Moon Studios at the start of 2011, this is the fourth takeover for Bigpoint.

“We plan on expanding,” states so Heiko Hubertz, “and so we’re still on the lookout for other excellent studios like 49 Games. In the future, we’re definitely going to make more international acquisitions.”

Germany, Hamburg

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FriendFinder Networks acquires BDM Global Ventures

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

FriendFinder Networks an internet and technology company providing services in the expanding markets of social networking and web-based video sharing, has acquired BDM Global Ventures Ltd., the company which owns the operations of JigoCity, for a combination of stock and warrants.  The merger consideration consists of approximately 1.6 million shares of FFN common stock and approximately 6.4 million FFN warrants with exercise prices ranging from $5.00-$18.00 per share.  Assuming the cashless exercise of all the warrants at the highest exercise price, the merger consideration will be approximately $65 million.

JigoCity is a global social commerce organisation providing daily deals. They have 150 employees and provide services in around 20 cities and offices in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, China,South Korea, Brazil and Los Angeles. The company has plans to expand into additional countries by year end. JigoCity generated revenue of approximately $600,000 in July and approximately $1.1 million in August and has grown its user base to over 1 million members.

JigoCity is led by an experienced management team including Founder and Chief Executive Officer Tony Bobulinski, Founder and Chief Marketing Officer Michael Dorman and Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Joshua Mallamud. Following the acquisition, JigoCity will retain its brand identity while benefiting from FriendFinder Networks’ website traffic and user base. JigoCity will remain based in Los Angeles, CA with its Asia Regional Headquarters in Shanghai, China.

Marc Bell, Chief Executive Officer of FriendFinder Networks Inc. said, “We are expanding into today’s rapidly growing social commerce environment and we are very excited about the new possibilities this acquisition presents. Not only are we acquiring a growing and successful social commerce company, we believe we are gaining an additional avenue to monetize our foreign markets. China and the Asia-Pacific region represent one of the fastest growing areas of the world in terms of economic growth, internet usage and middle and upper class consumers. In addition, we believe this acquisition demonstrates the innovative ways we continue to leverage our large user base and the web traffic generated by our network of websites.”

USA, Sunnyvale, CA, Los Angeles, CA & China, Shanghai

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Batanga acquires MetroFlog, third Hispanic-focused acquisition in four months

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Batanga has acquired MetroFlog and partner sites, MetroBlog and MetroPostales. This is Batanga’s third Hispanic-focused acquisition in four months. In June Fusion DigiNet reported Batanga’s acquisitions of Adfunky and I-Network. The latest acquisition increases the company’s audience by over six million unique visitors a month.

MetroFlog.com is a social media platform that allows users to create individual spaces where they upload personal photos and share them among all other users. To date, MetroFlog users have published over twenty million photographs, uploading an additional sixty thousand photos daily. The photo blogs serve as catalyst for comments, guest signatures, making friends, and are at the core of the social experience on MetroFlog.com.

MetroBlog.com was developed on a common platform, enabling users to publish personal blogs as a means for social interaction. Users are encouraged to publish their thoughts, writings, and journal entries to share with other users such as themselves. MetroPostales provides users with hundreds of electronic greeting cards to share with friends and loved ones. Each of the properties provides Hispanics online with unique opportunities to communicate and network with one another.

“Our latest acquisition further solidifies our commitment to developing and delivering relevant and quality content to the Hispanic online audience. MetroFlog provides users with an alternative social experience that allows them to communicate and express themselves,” said Rafael Urbina, Chairman and CEO, Batanga, Inc. “We are thrilled to add such a dynamic social platform to the Batanga, Inc. family of sites and eager to introduce them to advertisers.”

USA, Miami, FL

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Final results of Match.com tender offer for Meetic S.A. announced

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Match.com, a personals company and an operating business of IAC/InterActiveCorp, announced that the French Autorite des marches financiers (AMF) have published the final results of the tender offer initiated by Match.com on Meetic S.A. The planned public offer was first reported on Fusion DigiNet in May this year.

A total of 808,115 shares were tendered in the subsequent offer period by Meetic shareholders.  Upon settlement and delivery of those shares, which is expected to occur on or prior to September 19, 2011, Match will hold approximately 18.6 million shares, representing approximately 81% of the share capital of Meetic S.A.

Meetic is a French stock corporation, with its registered office in Paris.  It is a leader in the European online dating market currently established in 16 European countries, and available in 13 languages. Meetic is listed in Compartment B of Euronext Paris of the NYSE Euronext (MEET.PA).

USA, New York, NY & France, Paris

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ClearOne acquires MagicBox

September 12, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

ClearOne, a global communications and entertainment solutions company, has acquired MagicBox, Inc. The acquisition is a part of the company’s broader strategy to capitalise on emerging market opportunities as audio video, information technology, unified communications and traditional digital signage converge to meet enterprise and commercial multimedia needs.

“The combined expertise of the two companies brings to the market, the only complete, end-to-end digital signage content management and IP streaming solution,” said Zee Hakimoglu, Chairman and CEO of ClearOne. “The MagicBox content management and control technology and their industry leading database integration software are the perfect compliments to ClearOne’s StreamNet™ systems.”

Privately-held MagicBox, headquartered in Corvallis, Oregon and founded in 1995, designs, develops and markets a variety of hardware and software solutions to deliver digital content and information to digital displays.

“MagicBox and ClearOne have complementary products for a broad spectrum of applications,” said Tom Searcy, founder of MagicBox. “One of the single-most challenging requirements for any digital signage provider is the ability to distribute content over a wide-area network while maintaining control and scheduling alignment. StreamNet technology delivers low-latency HD distribution over IP which is a perfect fit with MagicBox’s content creation, scheduling, database integration and digital signage domain expertise.”

The acquisition presents both companies with new global market opportunities and accelerated product development. It also brings economies of scale to MagicBox, which will be leveraged to execute go-to-market strategies.

USA, Salt Lake City, UT

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Centaur Media acquires Investment Platforms for up to £6.3M

September 6, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Business information and events group Centaur Media plc has acquired Investment Platforms, a specialist information business in the retail financial services sector. The purchase price is £1.8m, payable in cash at completion, and a further payment in cash subject to IPL’s profits in the year to 30 June 2014. The total purchase price will be capped at £6.3m.

IPL provides research data, analysis and advice on the subject of retail financial distribution and fund platforms, with a particular focus on financial wraps, or platforms that typically offer access to a range of asset types. It also organises events for product providers and intermediaries. The investment wrap and platform market has become one of the driving forces of the retail financial services industry in the past 10 years.

IPL was founded three years ago by vendor, Holly Mackay, who had previously developed and managed investment platforms for Merrill Lynch and Norwich Union in Australia before being appointed UK Director of Santander’s Allfunds Bank in 2005. IPL has quickly established itself as the leading source of information on this fast-growing specialist area and on retail investment distribution in general.Holly and her staff will remain with the business following the acquisition,

IPL’s revenues are currently generated principally through subscriptions to research reports, and from sponsorship and delegate revenues derived from events. Pro forma 2011 revenues and earnings before interest and tax (ebit) are £0.9m and £0.3m, respectively.  The value of gross assets of IPL at completion amounted to approximately £0.4m. The acquisition is expected to be immediately earnings enhancing.

Geoff Wilmot, CEO of Centaur, said:

“This earnings enhancing acquisition is an excellent fit with us. IPL provides specialist information and advice to the retail funds and intermediary community, which is a core market for Centaur, served by our leading brands Money Marketing and Fund Strategy.

“This market is in a period of significant change following the completion of the Retail Distribution Review and IPL is the leading expert information provider in the field.  Given our strong position in this market, we are ideally placed to provide IPL with full market distribution of its services. ”

UK, London

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Yandex acquires The Tweeted Times

September 5, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Russian search engine company Yandex has announced that it has acquired The Tweeted Times, a social news service that aggregates news in your Twitter stream to create a personalised newspaper.

The Tweeted Times is founded by Maxim Grinev and Maria Grineva in 2010. They will now join Yandex Labs in Palo Alto, California.

Russia, Moscow

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Google acquires Zave Networks

September 5, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Zave Networks, a business that offers money saving digital incentives online and on mobile device, has been acquired by Google. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Zave Networks announcement is below:

Since 2006, our small but dedicated team has been passionate about creating a better platform for incentive programs — like coupons and loyalty rewards — by making them 100% digital, easier, more measurable, efficient and environmentally-friendly.

In this time, we’ve never lost our pioneering spirit or our focus on simultaneously addressing the needs of three distinct customer groups: consumers, retailers and marketers. Because of this, we have been able to efficiently build, deploy and grow our platform.

When we had the opportunity to join Google, we felt it was the perfect fit for our company and the perfect opportunity to rapidly drive the deployment and use of our platform to the next level.

We’re humbled by the unending support our investors, retailers, advertisers, and consumers have provided over the past 5 years, and would like to thank each and every one of them. Going forward, we are excited about being part of Google’s efforts in this space.

Googles investment arm, Google Ventures has also invested in the space. They have made an investment in Texas based WhaleShark Media, a portfolio of coupon and deal websites – http://www.RetailMeNot.com , http://www.VoucherCodes.co.uk, http://www.Deals.com, http://www.Deals2Buy.com, http://www.Gutschein-Codes.de, http://www.CheapStingyBargains.com, http://www.CouponSeven.com, and http://www.CouponShare.com.

USA, Mountain View, CA & Kansas City, KS

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Ziff Davis has acquired Focus Research

September 5, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Ziff Davis has acquired Focus Research, a provider of online research to enterprise buyers and leads to IT vendors. Focus Research  was founded in 2005 with backing from Lightspeed Ventures, Trinity Ventures and GGV Capital, Focus Research (formerly known as Tippit).  Effective immediately, Focus Research will be renamed “Ziff Davis B2B Focus” and will operate as a stand-alone unit within Ziff Davis, Inc. The new business unit will continue to operate out of its current offices in San Francisco.

As part of this transaction, a small group of Focus Research employees, including CEO Scott Albro, will leave to work on building out Focus.com as a separate business not affiliated with Ziff Davis.

“Through this acquisition, Ziff Davis will strengthen its core mission of informing and influencing in-market buyers of technology,” said Vivek Shah, CEO of Ziff Davis. “We welcome the Focus Research team to Ziff Davis and look forward to working together to provide our marketing clients a full array of solutions from premium display to data-targeted advertising to lead-gen programs across consumer and business audiences.”

USA, New York, NY & San Francisco, CA

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NUS Consulting Group acquires Viking Energy Management

September 5, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

NUS Consulting Group, a provider of energy management solutions to businesses and energy intensive organisations, has acquired Viking Energy Management, a private company, specialising in risk management and energy procurement. Viking Energy Management is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The acquisition of Viking Energy Management will not only complement NUS Consulting Group’s existing staff and services, but will also provide us with a strong and experienced energy trading and risk management team which will broaden our existing service offerings in this extremely important area. I am very pleased that Viking has agreed to join and become part of NUS Consulting Group,” said Richard D. Soultanian, Co-President of NUS Consulting Group.

“We are very excited to be part of NUS,” said Bryant Lee, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Viking Energy Management. “This transaction recognizes Viking’s unique strengths in the area of energy trading and risk management. By joining with NUS Consulting Group we become part of the world’s largest and most respected energy management consulting firm and will be able to provide our energy trading and risk management support to NUS and Viking clients around the world.”

Bryant Lee  takes new role as Manager of Energy Trading and Risk Management at NUS Consulting Group.

USA, Park Ridge, NJ & Charlotte, NC

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