Digital media company Evolve Media has acquired Crowd Ignite, a content exchange engine that contextually connects audiences of similar interests, the company announced this morning. The price it paid was not disclosed, with TechCrunch has learned that the deal value was low: $1 million in cash, equity and earn-out commitments, to be precise.
Crowd Ignite enables publishers within defined audience verticals to share their content within a closed network, thereby exposing their content to relevant users on other sites and allowing them to acquire new users and grow their audience.
Crowd Ignite’s proprietary technology is able to track which pieces of content within a site are the most popular, present it to users on sites within the network and then optimize the landing page in a way that presents the content they are most likely to want to consume.
Crowd Ignite has over 300 publishers participating across such verticals as women, fashion, parenting, movies, gaming, and male-lifestyle.
This is where the acquisition makes sense. Evolve Media combines an ad sales business (Gorilla Nation), a video solution (Springboard) and an interactive marketing business unit (Double Helix) with a publishing business (AtomicOnline), which includes such properties as SheKnows, CraveOnline, TheFashionSpot, GameRevolution and Momtastic in its portfolio.
The Crowd Ignite team will continue to run day-to-day operations post acquisition.
The company’s founder and creator, Jake Moilanen, will continue as MD.