Here’s some big news out of the Baltics: Slevomat Group from the Czech Republic and Cherry Media have partnered together to form the region’s largest Daily Deals group. Their 2011 turnover put together exceeds 60 million euros, putting them up there as one of the largest startups in the region.
“Both companies were looking for expansion in Central Europe and teaming up was the most logical step. We have the best management teams in the region and have now got great opportunity to gain a scale for region-wide deals,“ said Tomáš Čupr, Chief Executive Officer of Slevomat.
The agreement involves Slevomat taking a stake in Cherry’s equity and operational cooperation across the region. Cherry’s and Slevomat’s representatives will join each other’s boards and work on integration of the companies. Both parties already began cooperating in May of 2011.
Slevomat and Cherry plan to nearly double its turnover in 2012 from 60 m EUR in 2011 and expand into local commerce and discounted retail. “We see no slowdown. We are constantly innovating and expanding into new product categories such as goods or travel,” says Tomáš Čupr, CEO of Slevomat.
The daily deals market is as cut-throat as it gets, and there’s likely a good strategy in banding together rather than driving each other out. I’m curious what kind of upper limit the daily deals market will see, but so far it’s been going up and up. Last month, the group served 2700 deals to almost two million subscribers in seven CEE countries.
