A tiny acquisition of Israeli sport aficionados website Sportingo.com went almost unnoticed in the blogosphere. SportBuzz, the parent company of Sportingo which also owns the blog Caught Offsite as well as the video site Get Sport, was sold for several millions to UK-based Tixdaq.com, an online ticket retailer. SportBuzz had raised $3.5 million in funding to date.
Sportingo is an online media platform where sport fans can post discussions, state their opinions and get the latest sporting news (see last year’s post on VC Cafe). Sportingo’s gimmick, was the use of sanitized user generated content, to ensure that quality is maintained. Together with Caught Off-site and Get Sport.Tv, the websites reportedly attracted one million unique viewers a month.
According to Calcalist, the deal was structured as $1 million in cash, and the rest as commissions earned from ticket sales on Sportingo.com. Sportingo employs a total of 20 people in its development center in Israel and its sales office in London. As a result of the acquisition, the Israeli office is expected to close, but the future employment of the team remains to be decided. Ze’ev Rozov, Sportingo’s chief exec, said that the deal would enable the company to further develop its technology and integrate its content on the ticketing site.
One of the big winners of this deal is angel investor Tal Barnoach, who also serves as the chairman of Vcon. In the past year, he sold two other companies, including Orca and BeinSynch. Other early stage investors include Igal Ahuvi and Ingenious fund.
He is a former General Partner at Google Ventures (GV) in Europe, former head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe, and founding head of Campus London, Google's first startup hub. Eze writes on Israeli tech, venture capital, artificial intelligence, and founder strategy.
He is also the founder of Techbikers, a nonprofit that brings together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read.
