ST. PAUL, Minn., July 30 -- Deluxe Corporation announced today it has acquired PartnerUp, an online networking community for small businesses and entrepreneurs. This acquisition is aligned with Deluxe's continued focus on creating a strategic portfolio of services and products that spans the full small business workflow.

"We see PartnerUp's web-based small business networking platform as one of the foundational building blocks for our growing small business services offering," said Lee Schram, Chief Executive Officer of Deluxe. "Business people increasingly want to interact with their peers through networking communities, and get the information they need to compete quickly and reliably. PartnerUp enables them to do this, with intuitive tools and features to address top of mind small business problems."

PartnerUp was launched in mid-2007 and already has several thousand registered members who are able to find and share the information, resources and services they need to start, grow and run their businesses. Deluxe plans to promote the value of PartnerUp membership to its current small business customers, and the PartnerUp community will have access to products and services from Deluxe and other brands.

"We're excited about the opportunity to be a part of Deluxe, allowing us to do things bigger and better here at PartnerUp," said Steve Nielsen, CEO and founder of PartnerUp. "We're confident that with Deluxe's support, we'll have the ability to do even more to help small business owners and entrepreneurs, while both Deluxe and PartnerUp continue to expand their presence within the small business community."

Earlier this year, Deluxe announced acquisition transactions with Hostopia and Logo Mojo, two other companies that support Deluxe's focus on becoming a go-to partner for small businesses looking to build and grow their brands. Hostopia is a leading provider of Web services that enables small businesses to establish and maintain an internet presence. Logo Mojo is a Canadian-based online logo design company.