It's been nearly 10 years since Bellevue-based Mercata closed its doors in one of the more spectacular dot-com burn outs. But the technology behind Mercata -- an online group buying service backed by Paul Allen -- is finding new life today.

Kashless, an online classifieds service led by Seattle entrepreneur Martin Tobias, has acquired a portfolio of group buying patents from Allen's Vulcan Capital. In connection with the assets purchase, Kashless today is rolling out a new service in Seattle called Tippr that will try to succeed where Mercata failed.

Tippr allows people to sign up via email to get discounts on goods and services in the Seattle area. (Current promotions include discounts at local spas and pizza shops). Here's how the company describes it:

Tippr is the new wave in collective buying. Our Tippsters scout around town for the best deals for our members and serve them up to you daily. We have actually shopped at every merchant and bought every product featured on Tipper ourselves. Our Tippsters are so good at negotiating deals that we are the only deal web site able to provide a 100% price guarantee. You won’t find a better deal on the merchants and product featured here, we promise.

Shortly after Mercata's demise, CEO Tom Van Horn told me that the business failed due to poor timing. So, is the time right for a new group buying service?

Well, as we reported last September, the concept is gaining some traction with the emergence of Chicago-based Groupon. The group buying site has been firing on all cylinders, one of the reasons why it just raised $30 million in venture funding from Accel Partners, NEA and others. At the time of the funding, Groupon was operating in 26 cities (including Portland and Seattle) and had conducted more than 800,000 transactions.

That will be some tough competition for Tippr. But in today's release, the company noted that it is different from Groupon and another player, LivingSocial, because it runs on a system which allows users to get better deals "as more buyers opt in."

In fact, some of the patents acquired from Vulcan appear to address that area. They include: "Demand aggregation through online buying groups" and "Method and Apparatus For Creating And Managing Groups For Increasing Buying Power On The World Wide Web."

Kashless -- which continues to operate a service by which people can trade used goods--raised $5 million from RRE Ventures in October 2008.

Before closing down, Mercata raised about $90 million. It also filed to raise up to $100 million through an IPO, but the economy soured before the company had a chance to go public.

“Vulcan was an early believer in group buying technology, first developed by Mercata in the 90s, and we’re excited to help Kashless apply this technology to the modern e-commerce market to execute on this large market opportunity,” said Steve Hall, Managing Director at Vulcan Capital, in a statement.

Terms of the sale were not disclosed. But Tobias and Vulcan do have some history together. Vulcan was a small investor in Imperium Renewables, a Seattle biodiesel company where Tobias previously served as CEO.