The No. 2 Czech Web Portal Centrum.cz and it’s parent company NetCentrum SRO, was acquired by private Equity Fund Warburg Pincus. Centrum.cz, also offers Web searching and context-based online advertising services. Apparently, Czech media has reported the value of the Web portal to be around $147 million.
Bankrate acquires Savingforcollege.com, a privately owned business run by college finance industry specialist, Joseph Hurley, for $2.25 million plus $2 million in possible earnouts. Savingforcollege.com offers various tools, such as online calculators and professional directories, and information about 529 college savings plans to help families save money for college.
Grandparenting resource GrandparentsMagazine.net, with an estimated 100,000 monthly uniques, has been acquired by Grandparents.com. GrandparentsMagazine.net founder Katrina Hayday Wester will join Grandparents.com. Grandparents.com is headquartered in New York City and owned by private investment firms Laser Partners and TWS Partners.. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
San Francisco based social shopping website StyleDiary.net has been acquired by StyleHive.com. StyleDiary.net which allows users to submit, tag and vote on fashion items raised $2.62 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners last year. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Penthouse acquired adult-oriented social network operator Various Inc., which owns and operates more than 25 sites like AdultFriendFinder.com, alt.com, Italianfriendfinder.com, gradfinder.com and even faith-based sites like bigchurch.com, for $500 million. Various has a membership base of more than 260 million users and about 1.2 million paid subscribers and generates an estimated $340 million in revenue.…
Microsoft Corp. has acquired UK based European mapping and location website Multimap.com in an effort to expand it’s location-based search engine and advertising web properties and to better compete with Google. Multimap.com which was started in 1996, receives more than 10 million users each month and has 120 employees. It expects $24 million in revenues…