Austin Ventures and two private equity firms have acquired Entrepreneur Media for a price roughly under $200 million.  Entrepreneur Media made roughly $80 million in revenues last year.  The acquisition should be finalized in July when due diligence is complete.

Seeing as how many Business 2.0 and Red Herring shut down, it is becoming clear that print publications are suffering from the competition of online publications.  With this influx of cash, Entrepreneur magazine could revamp their whole brand.

The problem I have with Entrepreneur magazine is that it features stories that are just bad.  Their Networking blog is even worse.  The stories are bland and don’t get me started on their load times due to the Digg plugin also.  Entrepreneur magazine should take the money and replicate Wired.com’s strategy.  Hire some quality writers, find a strong niche, and write interesting content for crying out loud. 

Information Source:
[1] paidContent: Austin Ventures and Another PE Firm Buying Entrepreneur Media by Rafat Ali

“I finally am getting to combine a passion of mine, helping women in business to succeed and lead with a company of smart, savvy visionaries paving the way for how business will be conducted in the future.”
-Kate Rodler, the new VP of Advertising Sales of Ladies Who Launch

Kate Rodler worked at Entrepreneur Media as the VP of Sales over the last year.  She helped the Entrepreneur achieve $13 million in profit.  Rodler spent time working as The George Lucas Foundation, Fast Company, Businessweek, and Grey Advertising.  She is a Stanford University alumna as well.  These are the credentials that she brings to Ladies Who Launch, an incubation company that connects women entrepreneurs.

According to the About Us page, there are ‘close to 11 million women entrepreneurs in America.  Women are launching businesses at twice the rate of men, and they are doing it primarily for lifestyle reasons–they want more freedom, flexibility, and control over their lives.’

Ladies Who Launch joins a niche of several other competitors such as Glam, TeamSugar, SheZoom, Yahoo! Shine, Carolyn & Co, and DivineCaroline.

Information Source:
[Press release submitted to Pulse 2.0 by Full Picture]