Barcelona Startup Offerum Finalizes Deal With PRISA

At time when most of the country begins winding down for summer holidays, Offerum, the collective buying site for local daily deals, has been making some big moves.  This week they announced the purchase of Destinity, the private discount travel club, and sold a 15% equity stake to PRISA to execute the acquisition of Planeo.

Offerum was founded in December 2009 by Christian and Sacha Fuentes and SeedRocket founders Vicente Arias and Jesus Monleon.  Within SeedRocket, they worked with mentors to validate their business model, ramp up to 1 million users and raise a €2M investment with Cabiedes & Partners and Bonsai Capital by the Spring of 2011.

Since then, the Catalan startup has quickly grown into a major player in the highly competitive “groupones” market with now over 5 million users and €25m in turnover for 2012.  Offerum has made several acquisitions over the last 2 years, most recently the purchase of Destinity, directed by Grupo Mercantis, a project that was incubated within Mola.  Not wasting any time, the newfound partnership with PRISA includes the merger of Planeo, PRISA’s similar venture, which has about 1 million users and €10M in annual revenues. Together they expect to reach 10 million users and top €50M in revenue by the end of 2013, instantly placing Offerum among the collective buying giants of Spain.

PRISA has also been in the news recently, making headlines of being on the verge of bankruptcy and evaluating their options between the US and Spanish Bankruptcy Court.  According to NASDAQ, they are looking to refinance about $3b in debt.

PRISA, owner of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, is suffering from massive losses in their media business, made worse by high financing costs and a struggling Spanish economy.  Fortunately, PRISA’s Latin American market is keeping them afloat, now accounting for over 27% of total revenues and almost 70% of earnings (EBITDA).  Hopefully, collaborating with Offerum will provide a much-needed boost to their shrinking revenues in Spain.

Hat Tip: Hemerotek