GCap Acquires Majority Stake In Local Social Networking Site

GCap Media has acquired a majority stake in local social networking website welovelocal.com for £450,000.

The deal will also see GCap pay for the existing cash in the company and will make further staged payments of £150,000 in total to the vendors as deliverables are met over the coming weeks.

The welovelocal.com site helps people find the best businesses in their area by reading trusted reviews and sharing their own recommendations.

GCap said that it will combine welovelocal.com’s online audience with its own network of local radio brands to enhance the broadband strategy announced by chief executive Fru Hazlitt in February 2008 (see DAB Dealt A Blow As Gcap Unveils Radical Measures).

Hazlitt said: “This is a great opportunity for GCap. welovelocal.com is a business in its infancy but is already showing excellent audience growth. We will be able to accelerate this growth in a way that reinforces our connection to our local communities.

“We will integrate its listings and reviews into our Capital 95.8 and One Network sites, enhance and support the on-air experience across these stations and develop welovelocal.com into the leading user generated reviews site in the UK.

“This will allow us to build commercially attractive online communities of interest, to exploit our local presence and access new classified revenue streams.”

Duncan Jennings, co-founder, welovelocal.com, said: “This is the first deal of its kind to really leverage an established media company’s audience in order to grow a market leading user-generated community website. welovelocal.com has grown enormously in the few short months since our nationwide launch.

“We now have the opportunity to build on this early success and hit a critical mass of local business reviews through collaborating with GCap’s millions of listeners. This will set us apart from our competitors and significantly increase our advertisers’ exposure.”

GCap Media: 0207 663 7000 www.gcapmedia.com