By Ryan Naraine
Looking to expand its sales lead-generation operations, Westborough, Mass.-based TrueAdvantage has acquired select assets of business news network LocalBusiness.com and plans to relaunch the publication in several key markets.
LocalBusiness.com, which published location-based news targeting the small business market before the ad market downturn forced it into bankruptcy in April, will be relaunched to help push TrueAdvantage’s lead-generation services.
TrueAdvantage officials declined comment on specific plans for the relaunch except to say a “new and improved” version of the news network would be rolled out in coming months.
The relaunch plans follows the purchase of LocalBusiness.com’s intellectual property assets in federal Chapter 11 proceedings.
The assets what were auctioned off included a content archive of more than 48,000 news stories and company profiles, a VentureTracker database of more than 2,800 private equity-funded companies, and a national E-mail subscriber base totaling more than 100,000 names. The domain names LocalBusiness.com, digitalsouth.com (LocalBusiness.com’s former title) and dbusiness.com were also on the selling block but it is not clear what exactly was purchased by TrueAdvantage.
The privately-owned TrueAdvantage is backed by U.S. Equity Partners, L.P., the private equity fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP., Rustic Canyon Ventures, and Tribune Ventures, the strategic investment unit of Tribune Company.