In a part-cash and part-equity transaction of an undisclosed amount, the Sweden-based site Stardoll - a girl teen-site backed by Sequoia Capital and Index Ventures - is taking over Piczo, the San Francisco, California-based social networking site focusing on adolescent users.

The 2004-founded Piczo - which has maximum members in the US and UK - started showing signs of disintegration in
2007, largely being outperformed by biggies like MySpace and Facebook. Even after its acquisition, the site will run independently as part of the Stardoll Network.

Initially a personal homepage for dressing up dolls, Stardoll, the brainchild of Swedish designer Liisa, is now a full-fledged site, which enables young girls dress up virtual dolls; craft on-line sites; design and trade their own virtual clothing; and access information on their favorite celebrities.

According to Mattias Miksche, CEO Stardoll, the company's acquisition of Piczo - with 7 million unique monthly visitors -came about primarily due to the evident interest of Stardoll's users to express themselves in newer ways, including through publishing. The deal did not hurt much, since assets like Piczo can be fetched at a 'cheap' price because of the economic downturn.

And, since Stardoll is growing at a fairly brisk pace - already having over 27 million members worldwide - it is highly probable that the site will be able to pull the Piczo network out of the doldrums!