Federated Media Publishing, a US-based operator of an advertising network for online publishers backed by the New York Times Company, has acquired semantic search company TextDigger for an undisclosed amount.
TextDigger had raised $4.3m in its series A round in February last year from Intel Capital, the corporate venturing division of US-listed chip maker Intel, US broadcaster CBS Interactive (formerly CNET Networks), angel investors and venture capital firm True Ventures.
TextDigger was founded by a group of former CNET employees and executives who developed patented linguistic technologies to auto-generate websites. As Eghosa Omoigui of Intel Capital said at last year: "Content publishers are fast realising their current methods of connecting web users to timely and relevant information, such as collaborative filtering and community recommendations, may not solve the whole problem."
Federated Media was founded by technology journalist and publisher John Battelle in 2005 with $750,000, according to regulatory filings. Omidyar Network, the family office of online auction company eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, and the New York Times Company helped launched Federated Media, which closed its series A round in 2006 at $4.5m in a round led by Panorama Capital, a venture capital firm spun off from JP Morgan Partners.
Two years ago, Federated Media raised $50m from venture investor from Oak Investment Partners.