Armed with a fresh $185 million financing round from financier Carl Icahn and others, Motricity has cut a $135 million cash deal for the mobile services unit of InfoSpace, the companies announced Monday.  

In afternoon trading, shares of InfoSpace rose $1.46, or 8.1 percent, to $19.59.

Closely held Motricity has raised more than $220 million since 2004 from Icahn Associates, Technology Crossover Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Noro-Moseley Partners, Intel Capital, Advanced Equities, and other investors.

Chief Executive Ryan Wuerch said that the company is in the process of raising a round worth about $185 million for the InfoSpace deal.

“We just announced this,” he said. “We’re not closing [the round] until everything is through.”

By acquiring the InfoSpace unit, Durham, North Carolina-based Motricity adds top-tier carriers Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile as customers.

InfoSpace Mobile, which provides mobile search, storefronts, and messaging services, narrowed its loss to $3.6 million in the quarter ended June 30 from $7.7 million in the same period a year ago. Revenue for the latest quarter was $30.7 million compared with $45.5 million in the 2006 quarter.

Icahn Associates first invested in Motricity with a $50 million equity infusion in February. Brett Icahn, an investment analyst with Icahn Associates who is on the Motricity board of directors, said the businesses are a good fit.

Mobile is “a growing space, and Motricity is well-positioned to take advantage of that,” he said.

After the deal, Motricity will be the provider of wireless storefronts and communities for 9 of the top 13 North American carriers, the company said.

Mr. Wuerch will remain as chairman and chief executive of Motricity, and Steve Elfman, current executive vice president of InfoSpace's mobile services business unit, will become president and chief operating officer of Motricity.

The combined company, before integration, will have about 600 people, including 220 from InfoSpace.

The transaction comes a month after InfoSpace agreed to sell its online directory business to Idearc for $225 million cash and makes the company a pure play in online search. Nine-year-old InfoSpace, which provides search through white-label services as well as through its own sites like Dogpile.com, Switchboard.com, InfoSpace.com, and Webcrawler.com, projects it will have a cash horde of more than $550 million when the Motricity deal closes within 90 days.

InfoSpace, based in Bellevue, Washington, got financial advice from Credit Suisse and legal advice from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati on the deal. Motricity received financial advice from Savvian, and legal counsel from Kirkland & Ellis and Boult, Cummings, Conners & Berry.