Better Collective seals Atemi Group acquisition for €44 million

The acquisition is a major strategic move for Better Collective with significant synergistic opportunities

The affiliate marketing giant Better Collective has completed the acquisition of Atemi Group in which is one of the World’s largest companies specialised within lead generation for iGaming through paid media (PPC) and social media advertising. 

The purchase price has been agreed to 40 million GBP (approximately 44 million EUR) of which 32,5 million GBP is paid upfront at closing in a combination of 27.8 million GBP in cash and 4.7 million GBP in Better Collective shares from the treasury shares holding. The remaining 7.5 million GBP will be paid in equal quarterly deferred payments until the end of 2021.

Better Collective also said that it will now be able to access major social media platforms, with Atemi being an approved advertiser on Facebook and Instagram, as well as combining its own assets in organic traffic acquisition, sports betting and paid media with those of Atemi. 

Better Collective chief executive Jesper Søgaard explained: “This acquisition is a very important step for us to reach our strategic target of becoming the leading sports betting aggregator in the world,” and added: “Atemi Group has been on an impressive growth journey since the company was founded in 2015, and has reached the large scale it takes to be competitive and profitable within paid media. We see many opportunities for expansion into new markets and for harvesting synergistic effects between our assets and competencies. The acquisition will immediately bring Better Collective in the absolute leading position when in comes to customer acquisition for the online operators, with an estimated annual NDC level of more than 600.000, and from a financial perspective Better Collective will take a leap of having proforma annual revenue of estimated more than 120 million EUR with high operational earnings and cash flow.” 

Atemi founder Richard Skelhorn said he would be taking some time out before turning his attention to the launch of five more start-ups, some touching on the gaming space but not in affiliation. Skelhorn explained: “I have been an affiliate for nearly 20 years, as I started back in 2001,’ he said. ‘When everyone else was at university I was working hard on building up my businesses, from starting my first casino affiliate site with just £400 on my credit card limit and no outside investment.’ 

SiGMA Calendar:  

SiGMA Americas and AIBC Digital Summit were launched with great success in the past week, pushing the shifting grounds of the gaming industry towards LatAm and discussing the current developments in digitalisation. In a first for SiGMA, both the gaming and the tech segments of the conference were offered in 3 languages, English, Spanish and Portuguese.   

SiGMA will launch its next series of events in 2021, with SiGMA Europe headlining next year’s calendar. Inaugural summits in Asia and Americas are also set to dominate the year, with SiGMA Asia launching in May 2021 and SiGMA Africa in 2022! Explore the full agenda here and register now!