ThinkNear founder Eli Portnoy. (Photo: LinkedIn)

Cha-ching! GigaOm reports that TechStars New York just got its first acquisition: 2011 graduate ThinkNear, a hyperlocal mobile ad startup, was acquired by GPS purveyor Telenav for $22.5 million. The startup will be incorporated into a newly launched mobile ad platform called Scout Advertising. It's the largest TechStars acquisition thus far.

Not too shabby. 

ThinkNear started out peddling a yield management tool, with the idea that businesses would run ads to attract customers when sales were slow, and quickly picked up a $1.6 million round with IA and Google Ventures. But when that turned out to be an uphill battle, the startup shifted to a broader hyperlocal model, and now here we are.

Here's what the acquisition will allow:

Now, advertisers will be able to use ThinkNear’s location targeting to reach consumers within 100 meters of any location. But the ads will tap Telenav’s Drive-To Advertising platform to provide browser-based GPS turn-by-turn directions to lead the person to the place that’s being advertised. That’s important for advertisers who want to measure their advertising ROI because they can see if someone arrives at a place after seeing an ad.

Advertisers who want any more guarantees than that will have to hire someone with a cattle prod to harass sidewalk passersby.

News Patch, we hardly knew you.

So much for "hyperlocal" news as the Next Big Thing. Ad Age Digital reports AOL is preparing to make big changes to Patch. Instead of replacing the vanishing hometown newspaper, AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong says Patch.com is now on course to take on classified ads giant Craigslist:

But perhaps the most interesting news was AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's comments about upcoming changes to its hyper-local news network Patch. Ad Age has heard in recent months that the much-maligned news network was being rebuilt, with its original code base totally scratched. On today's earnings call, Mr. Armstrong alluded to this, saying that while the first generation of Patch relied on journalists creating news about a town, the next iteration will also push more into listings and commerce.

Mr. Armstrong also told Ad Age that the new iteration of Patch coming later in 2012 will unlock "the vitality" of towns "for a much deeper, richer engagement level."

Police blotter listicles about guys shoplifting cases of Axe from the CVS are arguably a pretty rich level of community engagement but it's hard to argue with the success of Craigslist and the Village Voice Media-owned Backpage. But as AOL may find once all the old code is changed and Patch subdomains re-purposed, there will also be greater potential for controversy.