Spam Blocker Chomps Email Archiver

Two privately held service providers that first explored a partnership ended up with an acquisition deal today when FrontBridge Technologies Inc. purchased MessageRite Inc.

MessageRites managed email and instant messaging services store customers’ incoming, outgoing, and internal messages in its data center. MessageRite will roll into FrontBridge’s services, which scan inbound and outbound mail for spam or viruses, rerouting mail if a server goes down.

The purchase price was not disclosed, but FrontBridge closed a $10 million funding round August 2 that execs said would go toward acquisitions and international expansion.

MessageRite’s handful of employees will move up from Irvine, Calif., to FrontBridge’s Marina Del Rey HeadQuarters, bringing FrontBridge’s HeadCount to more than 130. MessageRite founder and CEO Kevin Merritt becomes FrontBridge’s VP of compliance and archiving. FrontBridge CEO Steve Jillings will head up the merged company.

Merritt says he approached Jillings a few months ago about forging an OEM deal, and the CEOs decided a merger would make more sense. “We saw compelling reasons to put the companies together,” Merritt says. “Our roadmaps were identical in a lot of ways, and we knew we would be head-to-head competitors if we weren’t strong partners -- or more.”