Digital Business Acquisitions

July 2008

Guardian News and Media Ltd. of the U.K. has acquired respected digital business company contentNext Media Inc., operator of paidContent.org, for roughly $30 million.

Founded by business journalist Rafat Ali in 2002, contentNext raised less than $1 million in funding from Greycroft Partners LLC in 2006. PaidContent, its flagship Web site, provides global coverage of the business of digital content. It also runs similar sites in India and the U.K.

Mark Patricof and Brian Richards of Mesa Partners in New York served as advisers to paidContent in connection with the transaction and Daniel Burnham and Michael Pigott of Strategic Law Partners in Los Angeles provided legal counsel. Greenberg Traurig LLP's Michael Helsel and Aaron Diamond in New York served as counsel for Guardian.

According to a recent report from media investment banking firm Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc., there were 146 online media and technology acquisitions in the first half of 2008 compared with 120 during the same period in 2007. Total value of those deals was $5.9 billion in the first six months of 2008 compared with $4.2 billion in the first half of 2007.

Among the largest of those deals was New York-based CBS Corp.'s $1.7 billion acquisition of technology information firm Cnet Networks Inc. last month.

Condé Nast Publications Inc.'s acquired technology news and analysis Web site Ars Technica LLC for undisclosed terms. Also last week, participatory news network NowPublic.com acquired Truemors, a citizen journalism site that provides news and rumors founded by Garage Technology Ventures managing director Guy Kawasaki.

Also last week, there were rumors that Yahoo! Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., was interested in acquiring online content and social media tools provider Demand Media Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that has raised more than $350 million in funding.