Covario Acquires Netconcepts

San Diego’s Covario, a venture-backed startup in Web-based search engine optimization (SEO) and interactive marketing analytics for big companies, says it has acquired Netconcepts, a Madison, WI-based specialist in SEO for retailers and e-commerce websites. Financial terms were not disclosed. In a joint statement issued by the two companies, Covario CEO Russ Mann says by combining Covario’s Organic Search Insight software with NetConcepts’ GravityStream technology, “advertisers will be able to identify the SEO actions that drive better rankings, and also deploy those strategies quickly, and in a highly scalable way to achieve their ROI [return on investment] goals.” Covario investors include Dubilier & Co. FTV Capital and Voyager Capital.


Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.