AOL To Purchase Contextual Ad Company Quigo, For $300 Million

AOL snapping up Internet ad startup Quigo for $300m, informs Haaretz.com. A week back, it was All Things Digital who reported the then rumor first. Back in July, AOL purchased Tacoda for $200 million – $300 million.

Yahoo Biz reports that, "The purchase is designed to help the Time Warner unit better compete against the stepped up online ad initiatives from Google and Yahoo. Quigo's two main ad serving products include AdSonar, which is similar to AdSense in terms of providing targeted placements on websites and through searches, and FeedPoint, a search engine marketing tool. Quigo has raised $45 million since opening its doors in 2000. The bulk of the investments, about $30 million, has been secured over the past year from existing backers, including Steamboat Ventures, Highland Capital, Leon Recanati's Glenrock Ventures, IVP and Meritech Capital Partners."

Apparently, Quigo hasn't had it easy. When the dot-com bubble, Quigo wnet through rough times trying to raise money while receiving almost zero revenues. IN was in August 2003 when things changed for the internet start-up when Overture signed a deal with Quigo.

AOL follows a long list of search engine companies who have bought ad networks, such as Microsoft – aQuantive; Yahoo! – BlueLithium and the much in news, Google – DoubleClick deal.

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