kaufDa is one of Germany’s leading “promotion search” sites. What’s that? It helps you look for the best sales and mobile couponing running near where you live. So instead of retailers needing to send out huge catalogues, Germans have warmed to kaufDa’s targeted nature.
Admittedly it doesn’t sound that exciting a business. But today European media giant Axel Springer has acquired a 74.9 percent equity interest in the business for $40US million, thus generated a tidy, and significant, European-style exit for the investors concerned.
The story behind the price is that traditional publishing companies are quite simply terrified of kaufDA. It targets the $3bn retail advertising market in Germany, much of which is poised to transfer online, long after classifieds in jobs or car search did so. Some 30% of traffic is mobile already: kaufDA’s iPhone Navigator App has been installed on over 15% of all iPhones and over 20% of all iPads in Germany.