AOL acquires relegence

AOL, a division of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX), announced that is acquiring a financial news information search technology platform called Relegence Corp. Relegence has 60 employees and the operation will continue to be based in New York as a wholly owned AOL subsidiary.

Relegence says it puts real-time information, news and knowledge in the hands of end users. It sells subscription services for real-time discovery, notification and delivery of information, connecting customers to cross-media content as it is generated from as many as 20,000 live content streams, says the company. It searches local and international newswires, print media, television and cable networks, regulatory feeds, corporate and information web sites, and Internet bulletin boards.

This marks another step forward in AOL's acquisition strategy. Relegence is AOL's fifth announced acquisition of 2006, following Userplane, GameDaily, Lightningcast, and Truveo. It acquired MusicNow, Weblogs, Xdrive, and Wildseed in 2005.

More information can be found at Relegence's web site.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Relegence reportedly has raised over $10 million in funding from Hudson Venture Partners, Phoenix Partners, Broadband Venture partners, and Entertainment Media Ventures. Since financial terms are not known, it is unclear how much was returned to the original backers.