Web portal Go2Net Inc said yesterday it has acquired Virtual Avenue Inc, a provider of free web-hosting services to small- and medium-sized businesses, for roughly $23m in stock. Seattle-based Go2Net, in which Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen recently took a controlling interest for $750m, says the acquisition adds more than 85,000 member businesses to HyperMart, its existing free business hosting service – which had about 190,000 business customers prior to the deal.
Go2Net claims the combined units (the acquisition has already closed) are now growing at a rate of more than 1,000 new members per day. Also as part of the deal, Go2Net gets USA Online Inc, a directory of over 200,000 business web sites organized geographically and by business category. The service is said to process about 250,000 user requests per day for businesses across the US. Go2Net says it will operate both Virtual Avenue and USA Online under the HyperMart umbrella.
Go2Net says the acquisition complements last week’s re-launch of HyperMart and the acquisition of Haggle Online, an auction service that will be extended to HyperMart, for both business-to- business and business-to-consumer transactions. The company promises that in the coming months HyperMart will also introduce shopping cart and turnkey commerce site-builder technology, enabling member businesses to sell goods and services in a secured environment.
