PhillyInc: Meeting-planning company finds a buyer

It sounds like the start of a joke: Why did the company that handles all the hunting and fishing licenses in California buy a Philadelphia technology company that helps corporate- meeting planners do their jobs?

"To grow" is not a punch line, but it's the reason Active Network Inc. acquired StarCite Inc., which has its headquarters at 1600 Market St., in a cash-and-

stock deal worth $57.7 million.

J.R. Sherman, senior general manager of Active Network's new Business Solutions division, said in an interview his company had "never touched small meetings in large volumes."

In buying the privately held StarCite, Active Network, of San Diego, absorbs a company that uses an online system to link meeting planners with 83,000 venues, such as hotels, conference centers, and other meeting destinations.

Beyond simply connecting the supply with the demand, StarCite has been selling its services to businesses as a way to centralize meeting planning, cut costs, and even determine whether those meetings are worth having.

StarCite and Active Network got started around the same time: StarCite in 1999, Active in 1998. Spun off by McGettigan Corporate Planning Services, StarCite attracted venture investment from ICG Group Inc. and TL Ventures, both of Wayne; Norwest Venture Partners, of Palo Alto, Calif.; and TPG Growth, of Fort Worth, Texas.

Sherman said Active Network intended to retain StarCite's workforce of 300 people, including the more than 50 in Center City.

Active Network, the bigger of the two companies, might be familiar to anyone who runs in Ironman triathlons and marathons. It runs the Active.com online registration system.

Anthony Miller, Active Network's director of strategy, said technology continues to help the professional-event industry evolve. "People have to justify their events better, demonstrate that they have an impact on their business," he said.

StarCite's systems enable companies to aggregate data from their large and small meetings and produce reports that can calculate the return on investment of those events.

Of course, you realize what this means. For years, we've been forced to sit through mind-numbing PowerPoint presentations and complained that meetings were a waste of time.

Now, meeting organizers have the data to be more precise about the value of meetings, beyond, "There's an hour of my time I'll never get back."