Acceptional and Shpoonkle Form Strategic Partnership to Create Student-Focused Resource Solutions for College and Law Students

Cambridge, MA (PRWEB) October 24, 2011

Acceptional.com, a company that offers the most comprehensive online resource of college essays written by students accepted into the top U.S. universities, including the Ivy League, Stanford University, and MIT, has formed a strategic partnership with Miami, Florida-based Shpoonkle, an innovative and free web site that not only allows clients to confidentially post a legal case on line and attorneys then will bid for that case, but also offers one of the largest free online collections of high-quality case briefs and outlines for law students. Together the companies leverage technology to offer the most extensive, online resource for college and law students.

We are excited to announce our strategic partnership with Shpoonkle, an innovative leader that shares our vision of a creative, technology-based approach to the challenge of leveling the playing field for students, said Aaron Michel, co-founder, Acceptional.com. Our partnership advances the delivery of resource solutions for students and provides new growth opportunities for Acceptional.com by increasing our current market presence and expanding our demographic reach.

In the last decade, online and social media-based technologies have redefined student life, and access to online assets has become critical for success. The strategic partnership between Acceptional.com and Shpoonkle will provide the innovative, interactive, and collaborative online solutions college and law students need for academic success.

Shpoonkle is dedicated to increasing our collection of free online resources for students and to expanding the services we offer, and our partnership with Acceptional.com will allow us to widen our reach to more students, said Shpoonkle CEO Robert Niznik.

With the help of this partnership, Acceptional will be moving into the legal space over the months ahead, offering affordable sample admissions essays and advice to candidates for law school. Shpoonkle will be expanding its offering of case briefs to students who are just embarking on the law school application process.

Sharing a belief that services to help students need to be effective, accessible, and affordable for all, Acceptional.com and Shpoonkle are partnering to expand and extend the resources they provide. Each company has very different business models but both have similar demographics and goals with students.

The traditional college application process is terribly skewed, high stress and difficult to navigate, and Acceptional.com is facilitating change by making affordable high-quality admissions sample essays and help available to everyone. Similarly, Shpoonkle is creating a new model in the legal marketplace by making justice affordable and by providing free services for law students with high quality case briefs.

About Acceptional.com

Acceptional.com levels the playing field in college admissions by increasing transparency and access to resources that help applicants apply successfully. The company offers access to more than 1,200 essays written by individuals who were accepted into top U.S. universities, including the Ivy League, Stanford University and MIT. Essays can be sorted and viewed by authors' demographic and academic profiles. The company also provides an essay advisory service that gives students feedback, and an interactive Blog, written by students for students, that allows discussion on essay writing advice and other topics related to the college admissions process. Visit http://www.acceptional.com for more information or to browse essays.

About Shpoonkle

The EBay of Legal Services, Shpoonkle is an innovative free web site that allows clients to confidentially post a legal case on line where attorneys then will bid for that case. The client selects one of their bidders to represent that case. The client has the option to pick any of the bidders and can communicate privately with the attorneys. The site is free for both client and attorney. In the United States, the process has saved the average client almost 30% on legal fees while allowing Attorneys a resource to build and/or expand their practice. Shpoonkle has been widely publicized and recognized with over 600 international articles written about the highly productive service as a means to extend advocacy and affordable justice to many consumers. For more information, visit http://www.shpoonkle.com.

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Blekko Closes $30 Million Funding Round; Welcomes Yandex as Strategic Investor

Redwood Shores, CA (PRWEB) September 29, 2011

Blekko, the search engine striving to eliminate spam from search results, announced today that Europes largest internet company Yandex will make a strategic investment in the Silicon Valley search start up. Additional investors in the $ 30 million funding round were Australian investor, MLC Private Equity, and existing investors U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital and PivotNorth Capital.

"Blekko's top tier technology and fresh product approach has enabled it to sustain growth since it launched, something no other U.S. search start up has been able to accomplish in more than a decade," said Arkady Volozh, Principal Founder and CEO of Yandex, who will join the blekko board. We love blekko and think its a great product a quality search engine that organically combines search algorithms with expert opinions. We believe the outlook for this approach is strong and that the blekko team is poised to make it a success.

Yandex has 3000 employees in six countries including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus,Turkey and the United States, where the company has operated Yandex Labs from its Palo Alto office since 2008. The company offers an array of search services and products including web search, news search, video search, shopping search, real time traffic monitoring, maps, photo hosting, online payments, spam protection, an advertising network, and analytics. Yandex.ru sees 41.2 million unique visitors per month and currently has 63 percent market share in Russia. Yandex went public on the NASDAQ Global Select Market in May 2011.

Yandex is a partner and investor that shares our mission of making search the best experience it can be, said Rich Skrenta, CEO of blekko. Having access to one of the worlds top pools of search talent and the fantastic products they have built will help us grow blekko in the U.S.

For more than 20 years, Yandex has been developing and optimizing search technology, which is the core of the companys business and has helped Yandex become one of the best-known brands and the number one web destination in Russia.

Blekko was founded in 2007 and launched the search engine to the public in November 2010, offering a user-curated search experience that let searchers drill down into vertical categories using slashtags. Earlier this year the search company expanded its efforts to eliminate spam from search results and banned pages from well-known content farms as well as blocking pages from 1.1 million domains that were generating spam.

For more information, visit: http://blekko.com/

About blekko

blekko was founded in 2007 to pursue innovations that would eliminate spam in search results. The companys investors and strategic partners are Yandex, MLC Australia, U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital, PivotNorth Capital, and leading angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Jeff Clavier, and Marc Andreessen. blekko has 27 employees, including former Google and Yahoo! Search engineers.

About Yandex

Yandex is the leading internet company in Russia, operating the countrys most popular search engine and the most visited website. Yandex also operates in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Turkey. Yandexs mission is to answer any question internet users may have.

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