Ströer SE acquires global data and business intelligence platform Statista

Ströer SE signed a purchase agreement today to acquire a 78.8 % majority in Statista – the remaining 21.2 % will remain with the founders. Statista – based in Hamburg – is a leading data and business intelligence portal. 

Statista offers its customers a considerable degree of efficiency and extensive cost benefits in sourcing key business information, especially in the form of statistics on a single, highly relevant platform. The portal provides extensive data which is compiled according to the customer’s specific needs. The platform already gives access to around one million statistics from more than 18,000 sources, with one-third of the data generated independently, one-third by partners and one-third from public sources. On the basis of the compiled data, Statista constantly develops new, innovative and data-based products such as nationwide rankings (e.g. “Best employer”, “Best law firm” etc.) which are primarily marketed with partners. For this purpose, the company is already partnering with several internationally leading media companies such as Hubert Burda Media in Germany and Forbes and Bloomberg in the US. 

In their configuration, Statista products are uniquely positioned and in a highly scalable niche easily transferable to other markets. The company currently has around 200 employees based in Hamburg, New York and London. Statista reaches some four million users per month via the www.statista.com website. Next year, the company plans to enter other markets including the French, Spanish, Italian and Chinese markets.

Ströer forecasts a revenue contribution of around EUR 20 million in 2016. The purchase price for 78.8 % of the shares amounts to roughly EUR 57 million. Thanks to an agreed capital increase of EUR 7.5 million at Statista, Ströer’s stake will increase to 81.3 % once the transaction is completed. The remaining 18.7 % will remain with the founders, including managing directors Friedrich Schwandt and Tim Kröger. Both will continue to manage the company in future. The main shareholder Grazia Equity and co-founder Mattias Protzmann sold all their shares. "Statista has developed excellently since its launch eight years ago and is today one of the leading online portals for Statistics. This is a huge success for all involved. We wish the Ströer SE as a new principal owner and our co-partners staying with Statista continued success," says Alec Rauschenbusch of Grazia Equity.

“We are delighted with the acquisition of Statista – one of the most promising German start-ups on the scene today. Statista is true hidden champion which has seen an extremely positive development as a first mover with an innovative business model. In a nutshell, Statista’s business model can be described as the netflix of statistics. While our emphasis in the German market is currently on integrating the various digital platforms, we are looking for definable niches in the international arena, with scalable business models which allow for sustainable and profitable double-digit growth. In this respect, Statista is a real landmark deal for us as the company fulfils all these requirements and gives us our first global platform,” commented Udo Müller, CEO of Ströer SE. “With its high double-digit growth, Statista will be a key pillar and value driver for our entire digital portfolio and an anchor investment in our new e-Commerce & Subscription division. Statista is one of the few real digital innovations from Germany which is on the way to becoming a global leader in its segment and achieving systematic expansion. The management team led by Friedrich Schwandt and Tim Kröger has made excellent progress with the company’s expansion and has displayed remarkable strategic farsightedness. We are proud to lift Statista to the next level together with the team of founders.” 

In the first expansion stage of the first party content business, Ströer focused on increasing its nationwide reach and the subsequent advertising revenue. After just under two years, Ströer – with Germany’s largest online portal t-online.de (according to AGOF) as its core platform – is already one of the top three digital publishers in the country in terms of reach according to AGOF. From 2016, the focus will be on optimally monetarizing the user basis of the portal portfolios. With this step, Ströer plans to achieve a targeted diversification of revenue flows – previously dominated by ads – towards subscription, e-commerce and downloads. The newly created business unit “e-Commerce & Subscription” will be directly managed by Christian Schmalzl, COO of Ströer SE, on an interim basis.

The closing of the transaction is subject to approval by the Bundeskartellamt (German competition authority).

Disclaimer

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