Centaur Media has acquired for Taxbriefs £1.9 million

June 2, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Centaur Media PLC has acquired Taxbriefs Holdings Ltd for a consideration of £1.9 million, payable in cash.
  
Taxbriefs is a leading provider of tax information and advice to the retail financial products community. It produces a variety of paid for financial publications and content-based marketing support materials for independent financial advisers (IFAs), life and pension companies, financial examination providers and tax specialists. Taxbriefs also organizes a number of technical conferences.

Taxbriefs was founded in 1975. The company directors were Danby Bloch, editorial director and with the company from the start; Mark Hayes-Newington, CEO; Helen Macdonald, publishing director; Robert McKay, non-executive director.

The announcement says, “Taxbriefs has established an excellent reputation over many years as a supplier of high need content to the IFA community.  We are very excited by the opportunities that this acquisition is expected to bring.  Under Centaur’s ownership, Taxbriefs will enjoy significant marketing advantages through its association with Money Marketing.  In addition, following the recent launch of the Money Marketing Academy, the acquisition of Taxbriefs strengthens Centaur’s position as the leading provider of specialist information to support IFA training and professional development in the more demanding environment which is being introduced by the recent Retail Distribution Review.”

Location: UK, London

Ref: F231109-474

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BuzzMedia acquire three music entertainment sites

June 1, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

BuzzMedia, the entertainment publisher, today announced the addition of six music sites. According to paidContent three are acquisitions – PureVolume, Concrete Loop and Gorilla vs. Bear. The other three are described as partnerships. They are PopMatters, , The Hype Machine, and RCRD LBL. Buzz Media say together they connect with over five million fans every month.

Location: USA, Hollywood, CA

Ref: F231109-473

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Bigpoint acquire games development studio Radon Labs

June 1, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Bigpoint GmbH, a leading developer of in browser-based video games, has acquired Game development studio Radon Labs. Radon Labs recently filed for bankruptcy due to financial concerns.

Bigpoint gains more than 35 new employees, including Radon Labs Managing Directors Bernd Beyreuther and Andre Blechschmidt, who will remain with Bigpoint and direct its newly established Berlin office.
“Under Bernd and Andre’s leadership, Radon Labs became one of Germany’s top three development studios,” said Bigpoint CEO and Founder, Heiko Hubertz. “We’re excited to add their highly qualified workforce to Bigpoint as we continue to push the limits of what’s possible in online gaming. This acquisition is also greater proof that the market continues to consolidate. As such, we plan to purchase additional studios, both in Germany and abroad, to support our long-term growth strategy.”

Location: Germany, Hamburg

Ref: F231109-472

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Zodiak close to completing on the acquisition of RDF

June 1, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Sources close to the company claim Zodiak Entertainment’s acquisition of UK independent TV distributor RDF Media Group is almost complete and may close as early as this this week.

RDF was founded in 1993. Current shows include “Genius of Britain”, “Location Location Location”, “How the Other Half Live” and “Dickinson’s Real Deal”. The company was floated on AIM in May 2005 and subsequently was acquired by a consortium of the RDF management team and funds managed by Cyrte Investments BV. As a result RDF delisted from AIM on 2 February 2009. In the year to 31 January 2009, the Group generated revenues of approximately £131m.

The deal was originally expected to close almost two months ago. Reports say that it is a complex deal not helped by the fact that Zodiac is in incorporated in France, owned by an Italian operation and ofcourse RDF is UK incorporated.

Location: France, Paris and UK, London

Ref: F231109-471

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Blockchalk raises around $1 million

May 28, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Blockchalk, a free location based bulletin board, has announced in the Blockchalk blog that they have raised a significant round of seed financing. Around $1 million according to PE Hub.

The investors include Battery Ventures, Mitch Kapor, Harrison Metal, Founder Collective, Joshua Schachter, Josh Stylman, Tom McInerney, and David Liu.

Blockchalk’s announcment says, “We’ll be using this funding to build the next generation of BlockChalk and accelerate our vision, which is to help people connect with their neighbors and mobilize their local communities. We can’t share details yet, but we have some very big things planned. To reach our goals we’re hiring a team of talented engineers who are as excited about this vision as we are. First up, we’re looking for experienced iPhone developers and server-side engineers; details will follow shortly in a subsequent post.”

Location: USA, Menlo Park, CA

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Energate Secures $7.2 Million Series B Funding

May 28, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Energate a provider of demand response and home energy management solutions for utilities and their consumers, thas secured $7.2 million in Series B funding. The funding will be used to drive sales growth and customer deployment initiatives while supporting the company’s ongoing product development efforts and strategic partnerships.

The investment was led by Cycle Capital Fund I. New and existing investors participated in the round, as did the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation’s (OCGC) Ontario Emerging Technology Fund (OETF). OETF is a direct investment fund established by the Province of Ontario in 2009 to invest alongside Qualified Co-Investors into innovative, high-growth, private Ontario companies.

The financing will enable Energate to continue to scale operations and strengthen its position in the growing Demand Response and Smart Grid market. Energate has propelled itself to the forefront of this area by developing solutions such as its broadband-enabled and Smart Grid-interoperable Consumer Connected Demand Response (CCDR) solution set that is utility-focused yet allows consumers to control their own personal requirements. Utilities are deploying demand response programs to curb energy usage, especially during peak periods. Managing peak demand is proven to be significantly more cost effective than building new power plants, and those savings benefit utilities, governments, consumers and the environment.

“Energate’s market lead in Smart Thermostats and Demand Response combined with their smart grid partnerships gives us confidence that the company will deliver results and tremendous growth in this global market,” said Andrée-Lise Méthot, Founder and Senior Partner and Bernhardt Zeisig, Senior Partner with Cycle Capital. “We are impressed with the Energate team and what they have accomplished – the best is yet to come for this organization.”

Location: Canada, Ottowa, ON

Ref: F231109-469

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Facebook acquires ShareGrove

May 27, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Facebook is acquiring the assets of ShareGrove, a business that allows users to share conversations, web pages, pictures and video with groups they choose. All participants in a Sharegrove conversation see the same thing at the same time.

Seed funding came from Elm Street Ventures, whose Managing Partner, Rob Bettigole, sat on the company’s board of directors.

ShareGrove’s announcement reads, “We’re happy to announce that we’ve reached an agreement for Facebook to acquire our assets, and that we’re joining the Facebook engineering team! We’ve always thought that Facebook had a great product, and through this acquisition process, we’ve found out that there’s a great team behind it. Now we’re excited to bring some of that Sharegroviness that you know and love to Facebook.”

Location: USA, San Mateo, CA

Ref: F231109-468

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Thomson Reuters acquires Point Carbon

May 27, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Thomson Reuters has agreed to acquire Point Carbon A/S, a Norwegian-based leading provider of essential trading analytics, news and content for the energy and environmental markets.

This acquisition strengthens Thomson Reuters offerings to the energy sector through the combination of Point Carbon’s critical insight, market fundamentals and powerful analytics of key price drivers with Thomson Reuters leading news and pricing service.

Point Carbon provides banks, traders, portfolio managers, corporations and governments with critical insights based on deep industry knowledge and sophisticated modelling capabilities across the carbon, power, and gas markets. Point Carbon’s valuable demand, supply and price predictive models are based on proprietary data collection and are used by thousands of traders and analysts globally.

Technological advances are increasing the breadth, depth and frequency with which information is available on physical commodity flows and fundamentals, such as power production, consumption and weather, as well as events like political actions or operational outages. As global economic development continues to boost energy needs in a carbon constrained world, the combination of Thomson Reuters and Point Carbon will deliver the critical information and tools to allow market participants to optimize their business, investment and trading strategies in this evolving marketplace.

Shaun Sibley, Global Head of Commodities & Energy, Thomson Reuters, said, “This acquisition underscores Thomson Reuters commitment to the global energy markets and supports our growth plans for our leading commodity and energy business. Thomson Reuters clients will benefit from greater expertise and highly innovative technologies that will provide further granularity and a more sophisticated view of market conditions and their impact on price and trading. We will look to expanding our business to new customers, geographies and asset classes.”

Per-Otto Wold, CEO and Co-founder of Point Carbon, said, “Point Carbon has experienced excellent growth over the last 10 years and currently holds leading positions in our areas of focus. I truly believe that combining Thomson Reuters and Point Carbon is an excellent union of forces that will take Point Carbon to the next level.”

Following integration, Point Carbon content will be available through Thomson Reuters Eikon, the company’s new desktop offering to be launched later this year. In addition Reuters Insider, Thomson Reuters recently launched financial video platform, will begin broadcasting from Oslo and elsewhere around the world programs on the energy and environmental markets using Point Carbon’s analysts and proprietary data.

The transaction is expected to close in the coming weeks. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Location: Norway, Oslo

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Forbes Media acquires content news network True/Slant

May 26, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Lewis DVorkin, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, has announced that Forbes Media is acquiring True/Slant. Dvorkin describes True/Slant as an original content news network. He envisaged a new model that combined the values and editorial standards of traditional news with the immediacy and interactivity of the digital medium.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company’s original investors were Forbes and Fuse Capital.

Writing about the deal Dvorkin says, “The small True/Slant team, with more than 100 years of Web, publishing and TV experience, will now be working side-by-side with talented and dedicated journalists at Forbes Media. The goal: to work together to further develop a mindset around the  power of the Web and traditional news values. With hard work, we can implement new blogging platforms and more efficient digital, print and video content creation models; we can find better ways for audiences to engage with news and information; and we can pursue new integrative approaches for marketers and advertisers.”

He also writes, “The True/Slant team is quite proud that it helped lead the way in producing high quality content in an efficient manner. Now, we are incredibly excited about moving our ideas and passion on to the bigger stage of Forbes.com and all of Forbes Media’s other properties.”

Location: USA, New York, NY

Ref: F231109-466

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Beyond Commerce signs LOI to acquire WebYES!

May 26, 2010 — Fusion DigiNet

Beyond Commerce has signed a Letter of Intent to acquire WebYES!. The Board of Directors of both companies has approved the acquisition and the transaction is anticipated to close within the next 30 business days.

WebYES! owns and operates a network of high-traffic web properties focused on finance, insurance, automotive products and services. The web properties contain advice for consumers and offer a variety of specialized products and services to suit their needs. 

In 2009 WebYES! had $19.5 million in revenues and $3.5 million of EBITDA. Currently, WebYES! is exceeding last year’s revenues in a year-to-date comparison. In the first quarter of 2010, WebYES! had over 2,000,000 unique visitors to web sites such as   www.zipinsurancerates.com, www.fastcashmatch.net,  www.debtmatch.net, www.findyourcustomers.com, and www.aplusautoprotection.com , and has generated over 400,000 targeted customers. 

“We are very excited about becoming an integral part of Beyond Commerce,” states Brett Cravatt, CEO and Founder of WebYES!.  “In order to further improve our lead quality and results for our advertisers, we will leverage the proprietary customer acquisition platform that Beyond Commerce has acquired through its recent purchase of AdJuice.”

Location: USA, Henderson, NV

Ref: F231109-465

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