I’ve not followed the GroupsMore startup but I was really excited to hear about this. In truth, I’ve only recently signed up for GroupsMore as an experimentation to purchase a t-shirt printing deal.
Groupon came from the concept of bulk-buying. It leverages the buying group power to tip or win the deal of your choice. And in order to make the deals more exclusive and demanded, it added the woot! concept – 1 deal per day.
But seriously, news of Groupon acquiring a Malaysian startup is big news. Like when Facebook acquired the Malaysia company, Octazen.
There’s not much press circulating about this acquisition. The only press I could spot online came from CNBC.
“The acquisition of GroupsMore is further evidence of Groupon’s strong commitment to working with only the best collective buying sites throughout Asia and across the globe,” said Rob Solomon, president and chief operating officer of Groupon. “We will continue to help shape the way local merchants market themselves in every corner of the world.” Groupon Malaysia has now joined Groupon’s global network, which offers unbeatable deals to more than 50 million subscribers in 40 countries. Groupon employs more than 4,000 people worldwide.
Source: CNBC
And when I told Hawk about this, he mentioned it was the right strategic move from Groupon to acquire a competitor and grow seamlessly into the Malaysia market, or South-East Asia. Well-played, Groupon.
So, who’s the next Malaysia Internet startup to be acquired soon?
Update: January 29, 2011
Groupon entered South East Asia market as early as December 2010. They acquired similar concept Internet companies; Beeconomic in Singapore, uBuyiBuy in Hong Kong and AtLastPost in Taiwan.
Wow, it’s nice to read about this piece of news. Although I’m a GroupsMore member, I wasn’t aware of this news. :P Thanks for sharing it. It’s a nice writeup. Do have a great day~ :D
I don’t believe they’re looking at an acquisition but more of leveraging the Groupon modal. Specifically, a deal a day. And I bet it’s going to be like the PennyAuction scenario; automated scripts will be sold and more and more will sprout then the market will be saturated.
The Group Purchasing wind has started to blow hard in Malaysia. There is dailysugar.my and coming jackcow.com doing the same.
2 months later, here we are with 30 group buying websites in Malaysia with deals from the respective sites all aggregated and hosted in one place at http://dealshelve.com.
It seems at least 1 site is coming up every week. And yes, most are created from ready to run group buying package, e.g. http://www.agriya.com/groupon-clone
I appreciate insight sharing but I don’t approve of link building unless I agree on the perceived value it would add to the article.