Matchbin raises $22M, rebrands as Radiate Media

The company acquires NAVTEQ's Radio and Television Group and gets a new CEO

Matchbin, a local commerce, content, and digital publishing business, has quite a string of announcements this morning.  The company announced Tuesday that it has closed a $22 million round of funding, acquired NAVTEQ’s Radio and Television Group, and rebranded as Radiate Media.  Oh, and the company has a new CEO.  The funding was led by Level Equity, with help from Greycroft Partners and vSpring Capital.

The new entity created by the merger of Matchbin and NAVTEQ—Radiate Media—will provide local and national advertisers with localized content, digital content management solutions, and an advertising platform via its media partner network.  The company will continue to offer its Editionals content management solution for media partners, as well as the MatchLocal platform, which offers Web-based, mobile, and digital marketing opportunities to local businesses.

Former Matchbin CEO Hal Widlansky will stay on with Radiate Media as President and COO, while Chris Rothey of NAVTEQ will step in as CEO.  Rothey was formerly the founder and CEO of Traffic.com, which went public before being acquired by NAVTEQ in 2007.

Founded in 2002, Matchbin jumped into the digital media space in 2007 and has since grown its media partner network to some 2,000 partners from an initial beta of just 30 newspapers. The company doesn’t disclose revenue numbers, but claims that the growth has been “dramatic” and is expected to continue with the acquisition of the NAVTEQ business unit.

“We are attracted to businesses that are changing the way business is done in large and evolving markets,” said Ben Levin of Level Equity Partners, in a statement.  “Radiate has cracked the code on how to enable the massive base of incumbent media properties to access the shift in spend to measurable and locally delivered advertising solutions.”

The company says it plans to use the new funds to capitalize the business unit acquired from NAVTEQ and fuel the growth of Radiate Media.