Groupon's Potential Acquisitions In The Nordics And Baltics?
Groupon has just raised like, a billion dollars in investment money. It's clear some of this money will be used to acquire companies and build market share. In Europe, Groupon has acquired Citydeal, which is the biggest single operator that also has some business in the Nordics at least. However, there are lots of smaller and more active companies in the Nordics and Baltics.
Groupon has stated it will continue acquisitions to expand into new markets and gain market share. For some, this might turn out to be a good deal (pun intended) as the company isn't all that strong in Northern Europe with Citydeal's presence. We've covered a few of the companies I'm going to be listing here, but feel free to have your say what you think.
Cherry.ee
This is my clear favorite. This Estonian company is on a roll and it's annual revenue rate is around 4 million euros. Back in December Estonian Air had to stop a campaign they had going as people were enthusiastically buying the tickets. After 6500 vouchers sold, Estonian Air had to stop to take some breath. They have announced that another deal will be in place this year, but no announcement of the timing has been made yet.
Let's Deal
Let's Deal is a Swedish internet property that recently attracted attention from Schibsted in the form of them acquiring 37,5% of the company. While Schibsted is very likely to sell this back to Groupon, it is a clear signal that the market is ready for consolidation.
Deal24
Deal24 is another European wide competitor that has built presence in the Baltics (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia). While it is active in these countries - it's not very big. However, Citydeal is not active in these countries mostly so there's room for it to grow.
Offerium.fi
Offerium is a Finnish contender to the genre. It's built a small, but growing presence in the country and works also in co-operation with the restaurant reviewing site eat.fi serving offers for restaurants. My guess is Citydeal is currently able to outrun Offerium with its huge marketing campaign in Google.
While this isn't a complete list, it's a good start to reviewing flash sale sites. There are others which are currently being built, like Destly, but these are still very small and target a certain niche. Which ones are we missing and especially, which ones would make interesting acquisitions for Groupon in Nordics and Baltics?
Have to say that I can't understand why Groupon would acquire Offerium or swedish Let's Deal.
Groupon is already many times bigger than Offerium in Finland (measured in a way or another) and in this business what is acquired is usually speedy market entry and base for local team - not more marketshare. Market share can be built rapidly by ramping up advertising. Offerium offers nothing to Groupon anymore.
Also I think Schibsted's investment in Let's Deal is a sign of things to come. Old media companies are coming to this space - usually by acquiring minority stake or whole company. This is the direction - not the other way around - as in media companies selling their properties to Groupon.
Baltic players Cherry.ee and Deal24 are more likely acquisition targets for Groupon, adding those countries to their markets.
Also other big daily deal players in addition to Groupon are going to up their M&A activity, possibly in Nordics too, like for example LivingSocial announced expansion just today.
Disclaimer: President and CEO at JoukkoEtu (reworked our plans, pre-launch still)