Canadian Social Networking Pioneer Nexopia Acquired by Digital Ad Network

Last week Edmonton’s Nexopia was quietly acquired by Toronto-based digital ad network Ideon Media. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Nexopia was the leading social network for teens and young adults in Canada. That is, until Facebook came along.

Founded one year before Facebook, the site peaked at 1.2 million registered members and currently has 200,000 active members accounting for over 10 million pageviews per month.

Ideon Media is “Canada’s fastest growing digital ad network.” It reaches over 25 million Canadians with 250 million monthly impressions and 50 million video streams.

“Nexopia is the most widely known social network built by Canadians for Canadians,” said Kevin Bartus, CEO of Ideon Media. “We’re excited to be able to take this active community to new heights over the coming years. We’re also pleased to say that we are working with the Privacy Commissioner to ensure regulatory compliance.”

Bartus’ reference to the Privacy Commissioner is in reference to the sites recent run in with Privacy czar Jennifer Stoddart who has stated that Nexopia provides “inadequate information about a number of privacy practices.”

A classic Internet success story, Nexopia was the brainchild of 18-year-old programming wizard Timo Ewalds who built the original site in his basement and turned it into one of Canada’s most popular sites.

Five years later, in 2008, Ewalds secured a multi-million dollar investment from Burda Digital Ventures, the venture capital arm of Hubert Burda Media, which is one of Germany’s largest media companies. Shortly after that it became clear that while your Mom may be on Facebook, so was everybody else.