PartnerUp Acquired By Deluxe

Small business community site PartnerUp has been acquired today by Deluxe. Deluxe is most well known for their check printing service. Deluxe also recently acquired Hostopia last month. Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.

PartnerUp provides a posting board where entrepreneurs can find business partners and other skilled professionals that are needed to build the idea you have. There are networking tools and a resource directory for finding help with other business services.

PartnerUp is what SCORE should have been. SCORE is a non-profit group of retired execs who help new entrepreneurs with business plans, coaching, law and tax issues, etc. It's a great service but when I attempted to get help from the group several years ago, the ability to understand what an online business was non-existent. There was also no real online community for entrepreneurs to discuss issues and get help from the community. I still believe that SCORE could become more relevant again today if they leveraged the online community.