IAC/InterActiveCorp. continued its pre-breakup shopping spree Tuesday in announcing the acquisition of StarNet Interactive, parent of the GirlSense.com virtual world.
The deal will pair GirlSense, which lets girls create virtual fashion boutiques, with IAC properties like virtual world Zwinky and Lexico Publishing, whose Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com sites were picked up earlier this month.
Terms of the acquisition of StarNet Interative, based in Ra’anana, Israel, were not disclosed. Shares of IAC shed $.41, or 1.7 percent, to $23.54 in midday trading.
In an interview, John Park, chief executive of IAC’s consumer applications and portals unit, said GirlSense fills a gap in the company’s lineup.
“We feel this particular product has a demographic we’re not reaching,” he said.
Cathy Glazer, GirlSense chief executive, said the site reaches 9- to 14-year-olds, 80 percent of whom live in the United States, and features marketing campaigns for movies like “Enchanted” and music acts like Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers.
The popularity of pre-teen Web sites like Webkinz.com and Club Penguin has prompted companies to launch a profusion of virtual worlds. Mr. Park acknowledged the arena is “getting crowded,” but said that the user bases is growing and getting online at a younger age.
“There’s room for multiple brands and multiple markets,” he said. We’ve seen kids grow out of Webkinz.”
StarNet Interactive’s 20 employees will create IAC’s first outpost in Israel, Mr. Park said.
Barry Diller, chief executive of IAC, plans to spin off its home shopping, real estate, vacation ownership, and Ticketmaster units in August, leaving a core IAC with Ask.com, Match.com, Citysearch and other online companies.
New initiatives include RushmoreDrive.com, an online destination site for the black community, and FiLife, a personal finance site.
Mr. Diller’s plan to spin out the four companies with a single-tier stock structure almost cost him his job when John Malone’s Liberty Media, which has majority voting rights through IAC’s two-tier stock system, filed a lawsuit.
On May 13, after Mr. Diller’s plan was upheld by the Delaware Chancery Court, the two companies announced they had resolved their legal dispute and the spin-offs would go forward.