Wm Morrison Supermarkets acquires multi channel online retailer Kiddicare

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Wm Morrison Supermarkets plc is acquiring Kiddicare, the multi channel online retailer, together with the rights to its technology platform, for a total consideration of £70 million.   The acquisition is the first step in developing Morrisons online business. The company will continue to trade separately as kiddicare.com, led by Scott and Elaine Weavers-Wright.

Kiddicare, founded in 1974 by Neville and Marilyn Wright, is a UK specialist online retailer of baby products.  Turnover in the last full financial year (2010) was £37.5 million and has grown by 75% in the past three years using leading web technology and picking software.  Over 80% of sales are now through the online channel.

The company owns a new state of the art freehold distribution facility and operates the largest baby nursery equipment retail store in Europe based in Peterborough, comprising 160,000 square feet of warehouse, retail and office space.

Morrisons intends to build its online non-food business, developing the kiddicare.com platform and management team, launching its first products in 2012.

Dalton Philips, Chief Executive of Morrisons, said, “This acquisition brings not only a respected, successful and fast growing specialist retailer into the Morrisons group but also a robust, scalable and highly advanced technology platform around which we can begin to build our e-commerce offer. We are delighted to welcome Scott and Elaine Weavers-Wright to Morrisons, along with their team.  They are two of the most talented and respected operators of online retail today and their experience and track record with Kiddicare.com has been outstanding.   Their knowledge and expertise will be invaluable as Morrisons builds its online business.”

Scott Weavers-Wright, Chief Executive of kiddicare.com, said, “Elaine and I are extremely excited about partnering with Morrisons to accelerate the pace of future growth at kiddicare.com and look forward to working with the Morrisons team to develop their on-line offer. There are fantastic synergies between the two businesses and our platform will allow both brands to enjoy future success and to continue to deliver an unrivalled customer experience.”

The acquisition is subject to certain conditions which, if not satisfied by 23 March 2011, would allow Morrisons to terminate the agreement.

UK, Bradford, West Yorkshire

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Local.com to acquire the assets of Rovion

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Local.com Corporation is to acquire the assets of Rovion, a wholly-owned subsidiary of DigitalPost Interactive.

Rovion is a rich media advertising company which sells, creates, delivers and tracks rich media advertising including animated and video-based ads for local and national advertisers, including CBS Radio, Cisco and LendingTree.

Under the terms of the agreement, Local.com will acquire the assets of Rovion for $1.5 million in cash with an earnout of up to $7 million in cash and/or stock if certain performance criteria are met in the three-year period following the closing. The transaction is expected to close within approximately 90 days.

USA, Irvine, CA

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Resource Nation acquires Business.com

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Resource Nation has acquired the brand and associated assets of Business.com the online destination for business buyers looking for business-to-business solutions.  JMI Equity, a growth equity firm that specialises in investments in internet companies, provided funding in support of the transaction and the Company’s ongoing growth.  Resource Nation Chief Executive Officer Ryan Peddycord will continue to lead the Company with a combination of Business.com and Resource Nation management teams.  Terms of the transactions were not disclosed.

“We are excited about this transaction and believe the combination of Resource Nation and Business.com will allow us to offer opportunities for our customers to reach a larger number of B2B purchasers at multiple stages in the purchasing process,” said Mr. Peddycord.  “We are committed to providing the most comprehensive service and product offering available in our space.  With the acquisition of Business.com, Resource Nation’s audience will have the ability to utilize the site as a one-stop destination for all the information and resources they need when making a purchase.”

As part of the transaction, JMI Equity General Partner Peter Arrowsmith and Vice President David Greenberg have joined Resource Nation’s Board of Directors.  “JMI Equity is a sophisticated investor with strong expertise in our industry and helping companies similar to ours grow,” continued Mr. Peddycord.  “We are deeply impressed with their understanding of our business and its growth drivers.  With JMI Equity as our partner, I am confident we have the strategic and financial support to execute our strategy for the benefit of our employees, customers and service partners.”

Resource Nation will retain a number of current and former Business.com sales and account managers as well as other key employees.  The company will remain headquartered in San Diego, with offices in Santa Monica and Boston.

USA, San Diego, CA

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Outdoor Channel Holdings Acquires MyOutdoorTV.com

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Outdoor Channel Holdings has acquired MyOutdoorTV.com, an online provider of hunting, fishing and shooting content. The site, which has a dedicated library of more than 300 television shows and 8,400 online videos on the outdoor lifestyle, will join Outdoor Channel’s digital network of web sites, including OutdoorChannel.com, Downrange.tv, Cascity.com, Lake-link.com and OutdoorChannelOutfitters.com, to create one of the top online networks for outdoor enthusiasts. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Launched in 2006, MyOutdoorTV.com offers a variety of long form programming in the hunting, shooting, fishing and conservation categories produced by legendary outdoor personalities, such as Bill Dance. It also features short form content, including more than 400 “how to” and gear reviews along with educational and wildlife refuge videos through its partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and over 35 state agencies. MyOutdoorTV has included Ford, Sprint, Cabela’s, Evinrude, U.S. Army, and Arctic Cat among its advertisers. In 2009, its top performing year, MyOutdoorTV garnered a total of 1.4 million unique visits and 7.7 million page views.

“MyOutdoorTV is a well-recognized player in the digital outdoor space, and as a leading multiplatform provider of content for outdoor enthusiasts, adding MyOutdoorTV to Outdoor Channel’s portfolio aggressively expands our digital footprint while also strengthening our online content library,” said Tom Hornish, Chief Operating Officer, Outdoor Channel. “This acquisition combines two powerful outdoor content sites and continues our strategy of maximizing the ongoing appeal of the Outdoor Channel brand, celebrity power and our high quality cross platform programming for our viewers, producers and advertisers.”

OutdoorChannel.com serves as the anchor property in Outdoor Channel’s digital network – a digital network that, according to comScore, attracted a total of 13 million unique visits, 73 million page views and 21 million visitors in 2010. In December 2010, Outdoor Channel’s digital network ranked among the top 8 percent of all properties and web sites in comScore’s sports category.

Chris Moise, former Founder and CEO and Dave Barton, Director of Programming at MyOutdoorTV have been working with the Outdoor Channel’s digital team to aid with content acquisition and online partnerships.  They will now be heavily focused on continuing the growth of MyOutdoorTV.

USA, Temecula, CA

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Great Hill Partners backs All Web Leads to acquire InsuranceLeads.com

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

All Web Leads, an online sales lead generation company supplying the US insurance industry, has acquired InsuranceLeads.com, a provider of online leads to insurance agents, brokers and carriers. To finance the acquisition All Web Leads has teamed with Great Hill Partners, a Boston-based private equity firm with over $2.5 billion under management, who have made a majority investment in the combined entity. All Web Leads’ current executive team will lead the combined company, which will continue to be based in Austin, Texas. Morgan Keegan served as an advisor to All Web Leads, Inc for the transaction. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

“We are very excited to welcome the InsuranceLeads.com team to the All Web Leads family,” said Bill Daniel, CEO of All Web Leads, Inc. “This acquisition will create tremendous additional value for the insurance agents, brokers and carriers that purchase Internet leads by more closely matching their business needs and those of online consumers.”

“All Web Leads has built an impressive, data-driven online marketing business focused on the insurance sector,” said Michael Kumin of Great Hill Partners. “We are pleased to partner with Bill and the team at

USA, Austin, TX

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Generation Zero Group acquires physician online job board PhysicianWork.com

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Generation Zero Group’s newly formed wholly-owned subsidiary MedicalWork has merged with StaffMD.  As a result of the merger, the Company acquired StaffMD’s business known as PhysicianWork.com, which is a leading online job-posting website for physicians.  PhysicianWork.com has been in business in excess of ten years, and its online job network also includes DoctorWork.com and LocumTenensWork.com.

In addition to the job posting business, the Company acquired StaffMD’s portfolio of domain names.  This portfolio includes the URL PhysicianJobs.com which is currently directed to PhysicianWork.com.  Jeffrey Sisk, the founder of PhysicianWork.com will remain in charge of MedicalWork, LLC, and the PhysicianWork.com business after the merger.

The Company intends to aggressively manage PhysicianWork.com as the online recruiting market continues to expand.  PhysicianWork will remain focused solely on the physician community.  The Company intends to monetize the portfolio of URL’s that were acquired in the transaction which include PhysicianJobs.com.  This process may include licensing the URL’s or developing the URL’s internally or in some type of joint venture.

Commenting on the announcements, Generation Zero Group, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Matthew Krieg added, “Jeff Sisk has done a great job of building PhysicianWork.com into a leader in its field.  PhysicianWork’s annual revenues have ranged between $700,000 and $1.7 million over the last five years and it is a high margin business.  We are focused on keeping the revenues at or above the high end of this range and utilizing the portfolio of URLs we acquired to develop new revenue sources.  If we are able to meet our goals with this acquisition and the Find.com acquisition from last summer, we hope to look to move the Company to a listing on a higher exchange as soon as we can meet the particular exchange’s criteria.”

USA, Atlanta, GA

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BUZZMEDIA acquires women’s entertainment & lifestyle website The Frisky from Turner Broadcasting

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

BUZZMEDIA has acquired The Frisky from Turner Broadcasting System.

Launched in 2008, and focused on entertainment news, celebrity, fashion and women’s lifestyle, The Frisky had more than 2 million average monthly readers in 2010 (as measured by comScore) and fits with BUZZMEDIA’s portfolio of digital pop culture brands like Celebuzz, JustJared, Buzznet, Concrete Loop, Stereogum, TheSuperficial, SocialiteLife and GoFugYourself.

“As with other BUZZMEDIA brands, The Frisky has a trusted voice that millions have invited into their daily lives,” said Doug Rohrer, BUZZMEDIA’s Chief Revenue Officer. “Its users chase the intelligence, maturity and humor of its content, and this connection serves as the foundation for the high engagement and influence that are the core of BUZZMEDIA’s work.”

USA, Los Angeles, CA

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DMN3 Acquires Digital Agency SPUR INTERACTIVE

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Texas-based marketing firms DMN3 has acquired SPUR INTERACTIVE. the combined business will operate under the DMN3 name.

“SPUR INTERACTIVE is a perfect addition to DMN3. Not only will it enhance our digital marketing capabilities for our existing clients, but it will add new marketing services for the SPUR clientele as well,” said DMN3 Founder and CEO, Pamela Lockard.

Established in 1992, DMN3 has offices in Houston and Dallas, TX and focuses on the energy, financial and health care industries. DMN3 clients include Reliant Energy, KelseyCare Advantage and American Airlines Federal Credit Union.

The SPUR purchase brings a new talent pool and client base to DMN3, including ConocoPhillips, Star Furniture and The Scooter Store. Among the digital team joining DMN3 is Sara Stiles. She assumed a co-director role at SPUR a year ago and will add her digital and social media expertise as Director of Online Services at DMN3. Steve Latham founded SPUR eight years ago and will remain in an advisory position through the transition for SPUR clients.

USA, Houston, TX

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Mindspark acquires the VoxPop gaming platform

February 17, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Mindspark Interactive Network, an operating business of IAC, has acquired the pop culture gaming platform developed by VoxPop Network Corp., one of the largest pop culture gaming companies in the market. The gaming platform is used by many of the leading entertainment and media sites on the web.

The VoxPop platform, including its trivia engine, has been used to power pop culture games in genres ranging from music to news. The technology enables the fast and flexible creation of new trivia game mechanics across a spectrum of product types and genres, and will serve as the platform for several products to be featured on Mindspark brand IWON, one of the Internet’s original casual gaming destinations and a top 20 online gaming site*. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

USA, White Plains, NY

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Platts to acquire OPIS (update – deal terminated)

February 15, 2011 — Fusion DigiNet

Update February 15, 2011: UCG is no longer selling its wholly-owned subsidiary, Oil Price Information Service, LLC (OPIS), to Platts, a division of the McGraw-Hill Companies. Apparently UCG terminated the agreement.

Platts, a leading global provider of energy and metals information and a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, today announced an agreement to acquire Oil Price Information Service, (OPIS) from United Communications Group (“UCG”), a privately held business information provider.  OPIS, which is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, is a leading provider of news and price information to the wholesale and retail petroleum markets in North America. The purchase price was not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be completed in the first half of 2011, subject to regulatory approval.

“OPIS is a great complement to Platts.  It supports our growth strategy by expanding our presence in North America and extending our price reporting into the wholesale and retail petroleum markets,” said Larry Neal, president of Platts.  “The combination of Platts and OPIS data will bring greater transparency to the markets by giving customers greater insight into the petroleum supply chain – from crude trading to retail sales.”

Neal added that Platts expects to maintain OPIS’ products and services. “We intend to build on OPIS’ respected position in the market, its track record in product development, talented staff and committed customer base to enhance the value of its offerings and serve a larger audience.”

OPIS CEO Brian Crotty said, “We are delighted to join forces with a firm that is so well-respected within the energy industry.  With the credibility and resources of Platts and McGraw-Hill behind us, we will be able to expand our product and service offerings to customers and develop new ways to serve the energy information markets.”

Founded in 1977, OPIS provides posted prices for more than 400 wholesale terminals and retail fuel prices for over 120,000 gas stations.  In addition to serving the rack and retail markets, it produces 4,000 price assessments for seven U.S. spot markets.  Its broad customer base includes refiners, traders, brokers, large end-users, suppliers, wholesalers, fleets and consumers.  The company maintains a database of more than five billion historical spot, rack and retail prices and delivers the majority of its news and pricing information to customers electronically.

USA, New York, NY & Gaithersburg, MD

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