Midday Infomedia Ltd has said it will acquire the assets of privately-held SnatchKing Online Pvt. Ltd, an online classifieds technology company. As per the agreement, Midday will also take on board several key employees of SnatchKing. The financial details of the transaction are not disclosed.
In May, Jagran Prakashan, the publisher of the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran, acquired Mid-Day Infomedia, the print business of Mid-Day Multimedia for Rs 200 crore in an all-stock transaction. The company's publications include Mid-Day, Sunday Mid-Day, Gujarati Mid-Day and The Inquilab.
Since 1998, about 17 domestic deals worth $168 million took place in the media space, according to VCCedge data. In May 2010, Amar Chitra Katha Pvt. Ltd. acquired Mumbai-based India Book House Pvt. Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. In March 2010, Jupiter Entertainment Ventures acquired 26% stake in Kannada Prabha for a price of $14.46 million (Rs 65 crore) from Express Publications (Madurai) Ltd.
Founded in 2007, SnatchKing powers classifieds across 24 cities for several of India’s leading newspapers, including Times Group, Dainik Bhaskar and Midday. SnatchKing’s “ResponseCenter” classifieds lead generation platform is a technologically advanced lead generation system, incorporating several patent pending technologies in the realm of natural language analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence, stated a release.
Kunal Kapur, Founder & CEO, SnatchKing, said, "This is an exciting milestone for our company, and we look forward to scaling our growth as part of Midday. Midday’s reach, scale and widely recognized brand provide an ideal environment to fuel our growth.”
SnatchKing also operates the popular classifieds portal “SnatchKing.com”, which is among India’s largest classifieds websites. “SnatchKing.com” receives more than 1.5 lakh classifieds in categories ranging from Automobiles, Real Estate, and Jobs to Personals and Books.