{"id":47130,"date":"2023-10-20T15:52:32","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/groupons-star-deals-acquires-melbourne-start-up-crowdmass-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:52:32","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:52:32","slug":"groupons-star-deals-acquires-melbourne-start-up-crowdmass-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/groupons-star-deals-acquires-melbourne-start-up-crowdmass-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Groupon\u2019s Star Deals acquires Melbourne start-up Crowdmass – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Groupon\u2019s Australian operation Star Deals has acquired Melbourne-based group buying site Crowdmass for an undisclosed sum. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crowdmass was founded in 2010 by high school friends Tim Wu, David Wei and Ying Wang, all of whom are university graduates aged just 22.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 2009, the trio won the Student Entrepreneurs IdeaPitch competition, setting in motion the launch of Crowdmass in May last year. Wei says he and his business partners always wanted to start a business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re all pretty conscious with our bargaining and getting good deals ourselves, so we had a look around on the internet to see what ideas there were,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd we thought, how about using the power of bulk buying to get discounts?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The trio was responsible for every aspect of their site, including marketing, sales, site maintenance and customer service. They took in almost $40,000 on one of their very first deals.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After only one year in operation, the founders had sold their business to Groupon, which has been operating in Australia under the name Star Deals since February.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Star Deals managing director Alexandra Podeanu says the purchase was more of a talent buyout rather than a strategic acquisition.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cOur plans are to grow organically. Crowdmass is more a talent buyout. We were impressed with them and their business model, and wanted them on our team,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Podeanu says Star Deals has no plans for further acquisitions in the near-term.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When asked whether she believes Groupon will overtake the current group buying market in Australia, Podeanu said: \u201cWe are feeling very confident. Absolutely we want to be number one.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is what we will be fighting for everyday. I expect we will be a top three player by the end of the year,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sam Yip, senior research manager at analyst firm Telsyte, says he\u2019s surprised Groupon chose to acquire such a small company.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yip estimates the deal at under $1 million and says it is likely Groupon is taking a \u201csandwich approach\u201d to expansion \u2013 acquiring at the smaller end of the market before buying larger players, such as Scoopon.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like Groupon is looking to acquire at the lower end of the market. Everyone expected their first acquisition to be a much bigger operator,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCrowdmass is very small. They\u2019re obviously looking to build their database.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Crowdmass will be merged under the Groupon banner, with all traffic diverted within a month. The three founders will work in project-based roles, with Wu focusing on technical, Wang on marketing and Wei on sales.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Groupon\u2019s talent buyout strategy mimics recent moves by Google, which has embarked on an aggressive hiring surge as it seeks to attract \u201ctop talent\u201d from around the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can,\u201d a company spokesperson has said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Groupon\u2019s Australian operation Star Deals has acquired Melbourne-based group buying site Crowdmass for an undisclosed sum.   Crowdmass was founded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62842,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,23,13,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47130"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}