Reading Time: 2 minutes
Better Collective, in order to achieve its vision of becoming the Leading Digital Sports Media Group by acquiring Skycon Limited at a price of up to £45m GBP, expands their efforts within digital display advertising.
Financial targets for 2023 are being upgraded
Skycon Limited is to be consolidated within the Better Collective Group. Better Collective has upgraded its financial goals for 2023 in the following way:
Revenue of 305-315m EUR
EBITDA (before special items) of 95-105m EUR
Net debt to EBITDA without special items = 2.0
Skycon Limited
Skycon Limited (Skycon) is a British company founded in 2017 and is run out of Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. The company specializes in display advertising, using an “audience based” approach. This is paid advertising through channels like sports media. Skycon’s “search engine-based approach” is complementary to Better Collective Paid Media’s current Paid Media strategy. The acquisition will expand the market addressable for Better Collective Paid Media and increase its value proposition to the Group’s various business partners.
Better Collective will integrate Skycon into its Paid Media business and take over Skycon’s large recurring revenue-sharing database. Skycon’s growth has been phenomenal, and Better Collective plans to continue this trend with cross-selling synergies. It will also improve its own business by leveraging operational synergies.
Synergy highlights
- Skycon only worked with one sportsbook, but Better Collective will now expand it to all of its sportsbooks.
- Better Collective can expand the geographic scope of Skycon, for example into the US.
- Better Collective will direct future new depositing clients (NDCs), to its best in class global sportsbook agreements. This will increase the value of each future NDC delivered.
- Skycon is being used on the AdTech Platform that Better Collective has been building.
Jesper Sogaard is the co-founder and CEO of Better Collective. He said: “We’ve invested heavily to grow our Paid Media Division to its current size, as well as to move revenues into recurring revenue sharing contracts. Our efforts over the last year have been successful, and Skycon’s acquisition will add a lot of synergy to our journey. Skycon is an excellent business that is built using Better Collective’s preferred revenue-share model. Skycon is the perfect match for us as we can use our media buying expertise to increase Skycon’s revenue. We see a path for further growth, as we can scale the asset across more business partners and into new territories. Our unrivaled data on sports media will also be optimized. This acquisition will deepen our moat.”
Transaction details
Better Collective will pay up 45m GBP cash and debt-free, including a 25m GBP upfront cash consideration and up to 20m in earnouts. Earn outs will be based on financial targets for the first 12 months after closing. The cash acquisition will be funded, and it is estimated that the earn-out will be financed at least 50% by the revenue share database.
