Better Collective to buy Skycon Limited

The gambling affiliate group will expand its media services in the digital display sector.

Sweden.- Stockholm-listed Better Collective AS has announced a deal to buy Skycon Limited to expand its media offerings. It will pay up to £45m for the company – £25m up front and £20m in earn-out rewards based on financial targets in the 12 months after completion.

Better Collective will intergrate Skycon’s assets into its Paid Media unit to broaden its digital display advertising capabilities. The deal includes the acqusition of Skycon’s recurring revenue share database.

The company will fund the acquisition through cash. It expects the existing revenue share database to cover at least 50 per cent of the earn-out rewards.

Better Collective co-founder and CEO Jesper Søgaard said: “We have invested heavily in growing our Paid Media division to reach its current significant scale, while we also have invested in moving revenues to recurring revenue share contracts. 

“During the past year, our efforts have proven successful and acquiring Skycon will be highly synergistic to this journey. Skycon is a great business, which is built on Better Collective’s favoured revenue share model.”

Better Collective hopes to find cross-selling synergies in the acquisition, expanding Skycon’s partnerships and geographical scope and optimising its value per future new depositing customer. It will add Skycon to the adtech platform that its currently building.

Søgaard said: “It is a perfect fit as we can leverage our leading skill set within media buying to grow Skycon’s revenues. 

“We also see a clear path to further growth as the asset can be scaled across more of our business partners, into new territories, and optimised with our unrivalled first-party data in sports media. This acquisition will further deepen our moat.”

Last year Better Collective acquired Canada Sports Betting. The company has upped its full-year financial targets to €305-315m and EBITDA before special items to €95-105m.