Online affiliate and content marketing provider Raketech is to expand its Finnish offering through the acquisition of national sports listings website TVmatsit.com.
Raketech has paid an initial €1.6m (£1.4m/$1.8m) to purchase TVmatsit.com, with a further €300,00 to be paid over the next 24 months, depending on the website achieving agreed-upon performance targets.
Certain aspects of the TVmatsit.com platform and media strategy will now be integrated across Raketech’s key markets, with the provider to also utilise the website’s presence in Finland to access the country.
As per terms of the acquisition deal, the founders of TVmatsit.com will continue to run the product post-acquisition.
“The acquisition is in line with our strategy to offer all product categories in Raketech’s key markets, and until now we have lacked a guide product in Finland,” Raketech CEO Michael Holmberg said.
“We look forward to working with the TVmatsit team to further optimise the product with our content and SEO expertise, and also replicate their successful media buying strategy in other markets.”
Raketech’s sports media offering already currently includes TVmatchen.nu from Sweden, the UK’s TVsportguide.com, TVsporten.dk of Denmark, TVsportguide.de from Germany, Norway’s TVkampen.com and global offering Esportsguide.com.
Earlier this week, Raketech CEO Michael Holmberg said M&A form a key part of the provider’s ongoing growth strategy. He was speaking as Raketech confirmed Oskar Mühlbach as its new chief operations officer.
Raketech in February reported a decline in profit for 2018, with this falling from €5.8m in 2017 to €4.6m and profit before tax slipping from €6.1m to €4.8m.
Raketech cited higher operating expenses during 2018 as one of the key reasons behind this, with costs up from €8.3m to €14.4m due to higher spend on external SEO, hosting, development and domain expenses.
However, Raketech last month revealed it had repaid its entire corporate debt of €7.7m, cutting its quarterly financial expenses in the process. Raketech expects to save around €200,000 each quarter, thus lowering expenses moving forward into 2019.
Image: Matti Mattila