Enrique Dubois confirms the news that Carlos Blanco had advanced about the acquisition of Wamba by Mio.tv. The figures of the operation, not refuted until now, could be between 4 and 6 million euros. Some considerations with respect to it:
In the sector, people had commented on the interest of the founders of Wamba to grow the project and sell it off when presented with an interesting offer, but what was not expected was such a fast sale mostly because of the current economic situation. It must be taken into account that the initial capital invested in the company was 650.000 euros by the founding team and Matias de Tezanos and in September 2007, Morten Lund purchased a 40% stake in the company for 3 million euros, although it’s not clear whether the investment was realized in its totality. In case of confirming the figures of a sale of between 4 and 6 million, it seems that the return on investment obtained would not be too big. Also should be considered the purchase of the forum Vagos.es that considerably increased the traffic at Wamba and although it surely has given them many integration headaches, it also should have been a decisive factor to set up the social network in a good situation for a sell off.
Mio.tv? Frankly it’s the first time I have heard of this project founded by Manuel Garcia-Duran, who had been a director at Telefonica and Antena 3, and who wants to revolutionise the internet TV sector targetting the hispanic community in the United States. At the presentation of the project at the end of 2007, they said the company would be worth 1.000 million dollars in 2008. I think they haven’t achieved that goal (in one year, they wanted to be worth more than half of what Google paid for YouTube, now that is setting high goals) although they must have some cash on hand to carry out an operation such as the purchase of Wamba. I’m not sure if this acquisition fits very well in the strategy of Mio.tv. At first glance, it could seem like an acquisition similar to that of Vagos.es, mainly done to add users.