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Local.com Picks Up Division, Boss From Digital Post

Irvine-based Local.com Corp.’s latest buy has ties to a past executive.

Earlier this month, the company agreed to buy Boston’s Rovion Inc., a unit of Irvine’s DigitalPost Interactive Inc., for up to $7 million in cash and stock.

Michael Sawtell, chief executive of Digital Post, held the chief operating officer’s post at Local.com from 2000 to 2005. He is set to rejoin the company as senior vice president and general manager of sales and the advertiser services business unit.

Local.com runs an online search engine that’s geared toward local businesses.

DigitalPost Interactive hosts subscription-based services that allow consumers to create their own websites where they can share photos and videos with their families.

Rovion creates and tracks online video-based advertising for local and national advertisers, including CBS Interactive Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and LendingTree LLC, among others.

The deal is expected to close mid-year pending approval of DigitalPost shareholders.

It appears that Local.com scooped up Rovion in a bit of a fire sale.

The proceeds from the sale are set to help DigitalPost pay off debt.

“While Rovion’s business has shown great promise as we expected, the media sharing segment of DigitalPost’s business has continued to decline,” Sawtell said. “The sale of Rovion assets would provide much needed capital to satisfy our debtholders.”

It’s unclear what will be left of DigitalPost, which trades on an over-the-counter exchange, after the sale of Rovion.

The company’s stock has been trading for less than a dollar for about a month on a recent market value of $1 million.

The Rovion buy is Local.com’s second since the start of the year and the other deal also involved a former executive.

In January it picked up Los Angeles-based iTwango LLC.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

ITwango’s technology allows online advertisers to submit discounted offers to targeted consumers who receive those offers daily via email.

Local.com named Malcom Lewis senior vice president and general manager of social buying. He will oversee iTwango.

Lewis founded Mountain View-based PremierGuide Inc. and sold it to Local.com in 2007 for about $2 million.

PremierGuide became Local.com’s network business unit, which sees about $30 million in yearly sales.

Lewis also started Fablistic, a Bellevue, Wash.-based company which runs a social networking website that helps users find things to do and places to go based on recommendations from others with similar tastes and interests. He sold Fablistic to Local.com for undisclosed terms early this year.

Tech Coast

Irvine’s Tech Coast Venture Network, a nonprofit group that advises startups, is bringing in some new blood after longtime chairman Bart Greenberg stepped down last year.

Former president Ciaran Foley is taking the top post and Kevin McDonald is the group’s new president.

Tech Coast helps entrepreneurs get their business plans in place to attract investors.

“We help them get to the stage where they can be a real business,” Foley said. “We end up working with a lot of companies that are in the idea stage.”

The group hosts a series of educational talks and workshops every month. It makes money by charging a flat membership fee for the year and selling tickets to its events.

The group also has an executive committee made up of volunteers who mentor new entrepreneurs.

“They truly enjoy the entrepreneurial process and helping young businesses,” Foley said of the committee members.

One of Tech Coast’s local success stories is San Juan Capistrano-based OptionEase Inc., which makes software that helps companies manage stock options accounting.

A few years ago, cofounder and Chief Executive Kim Kovacs pitched her company at a Tech Coast program and answered questions from a group of angel investors.

It helped her hook up a funding round from the Pasadena Angels. She later went on to raise a few million in funding from a private equity backer and Corona del Mar’s Miramar Ventures.

“We create opportunities and make introductions,” Greenberg said. “Many move the companies forward.”

Former chairman Greenberg remains involved with Tech Coast’s executive committee. His has a full-time gig as a partner at Haynes and Boone LLP in Irvine.

Bits and Pieces

Newport Beach’s Jazz Semiconductor, the local chip manufacturing unit of Israel’s Tower Semiconductor Ltd., was named foundry supplier of the year for 2010 by Woburn, Mass.-based Skyworks Solutions Inc. Skyworks has been a customer of TowerJazz, as the unit is branded, since 2002. … Irvine’s Specific Media Inc., which runs an online advertising network, added television industry vets Larry Goodman, Bill Burke and Ed McCarrick to its advisory board … Irvine’s Broadcom Corp. recently inked a licensing deal with British chipmaker ARM Ltd. The deal gives Broadcom access to current and future processor chips across ARM’s product lines. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

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