Exits

Delver, who developed a social search engine, was bought by Sears. The amount was not disclosed, but it is probably not high - Delver was about to close after they couldn't get another investment. Still, good news.

Via Globes (hebrew)

In a 'strange' exit, BitWine has been sole to a VC - Monster Venture Partners. They plan to use the tech to help their portfolio companies. I wonder if we'll start to see VCs get more and more involved in their companies?

BitWine has a platform that connects 'experts' and people seeking advice (on any field) - somewhat like Kasamba. They have just 7 employes, in Israel and the US.

Read more here (TheMarker, hebrew)

Online advertising firm Eyeblaster has registered for a $115 million initial public offering on the NASDAQ.

Read more here (TechCrunch) 

TheMarker reports that Microsoft has purchased YadaTa, which developed contextual advertisement technology. The financial details were not enclosed.

Read more here (TheMarker) 

Foxytunes (maker of a popular firefox extension) was sold to Yahoo!, for an estimated 20-30M$.

Read more here (TheMarker, hebrew) 

TechCrunch reports that Yahoo may purchase Foxytunes - the company that makes a popular FireFox extension. Yossi Vardi is one of FoxyTunes' investors.

Read more here (TechCrunch)

Oridian announced it has been acquired by YBrant for around 20M$ in cash. Oridian has raised 8M$ from several private investors and VCs, and expects to have 20M$ in revenues in 2007.

Read more here (Themarker, hebrew)

AOL has acquired Yedda, the Israeli Q&A company. Yedda has raised 2.5M$ from VCs, and is growing quickly. Techcrunch reports they had 800K users last month.

Read more here (Techcrunch)

Update - the.co.ils has more interesting information (hebrew)

The rumours are true - AOL has bought Quigo, a contextual ad network, for 340M$.

Read more here (Techcrunch)

LivePerson, a provider of online conversion solutions, today announced an agreement to acquire Israel-based Kasamba, Inc., a leader in live expert advice delivered online via real-time chat to consumers. Under the terms of the agreement, LivePerson will acquire the outstanding common stock of Kasamba and assume all of its outstanding options for total consideration of approximately $40 million, comprised of $9 million in cash and approximately $31 million in stock.

Kasamba's thousands of experts sell their knowledge via real-time chat to the more than 1 million monthly visitors to Kasamba.com. Kasamba has experts in dozens of categories, including personal counseling and coaching, computer services, education and tutoring, health, business and finance. Currently, Kasamba's business model is based on receiving a portion of the gross expert fees. In 2006, the experts generated approximately $20 million in gross fees of which Kasamba received approximately $7 million, an increase from approximately $8.4 million in gross fees and approximately $2.7 million in net revenue to Kasamba in 2005. LivePerson currently provides live chat and customer service software to companies such as EarthLink, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Qwest, Verizon, Orbitz and The Home Depot, and supports more than 50 million consumer chat interactions annually across its existing customer base. LivePerson' presence in the direct-to-consumer market will solidify its position as a leading provider of real-time solutions for both businesses and consumers Kasamba offers a turnkey solution for professionals offering expert advice online in real time via chat. Experts provide their services via chat for a negotiated fee to thousands of consumers each month. Kasamba's commission- based business model generates revenue from each paid consumer-to-expert interaction.