According to various reports, AOL has bought Outside.In, and will announce that today. The price hasn’t been confirmed, but Business Insider says it’s been told that it’s less than $10 million.
Outside.In will evidently become integrated with AOL’s Patch property – the hyperlocal news service, which sounds about right, considering hyperlocal is what Outside.In is all about.
Outside.In aggregates headlines and blog posts at the hyperlocal level, as well as links to events, local venues, etc.
Outside.In pitches itself as the leading provider of hyperlocal business solutions for:
- Publishers to easily integrate hyperlocal news and information into sites and apps with Outside.in for Publishers
- Bloggers to get traffic from Outside.in and our growing network of partner sites with Outside.in for Bloggers
- Advertisers to reach local audiences in every neighborhood in the UnitedStates.
- Developers to innovate tomorrow’s local news experiences with our Hyperlocal API
The acquisition follows AOL’s pattern of buying up content-related sites. Other recent acquisitions include The Huffington Post and TechCrunch.
According to CrunchBase, Outside.In has raised $14.4 million in funding prior to the acquisition. This has reportedly come from Union Square Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners, the New York City Investment Fund, Marc Andreesen, Esther Dyson, John Seeley Brown, John Borthwick, George Crowley, etc.