Rebellion Media set on consolidating digital media

Contact: Ben Kolada

Rebellion Media was founded just earlier this year, but has already announced enough acquisitions to make itself appear like a veteran player in the digital media sector. From its first acquisition announcement, Sortable.com, announced July 11, the company has been printing a deal a week. In fact, Rebellion is buying companies at such a breakneck pace that official announcements are playing catch-up to Rebellion’s corporate website, which already lists all of the brands it has acquired so far.

Waterloo, Canada-based Rebellion Media isn’t hiding its intentions, saying on its website that it will continue to be ‘aggressive’ in M&A. The startup has so far announced acquisitions of content, mobile and Web development and e-commerce-related vendors. Targets so far have been located in its home country, Canada, but future deals are likely throughout North America and beyond.

The company primarily targets content and reference Internet properties in the health and wellness, technology, entertainment and sports verticals. But it isn’t restricting itself to this group. Rebellion recently announced the purchase of Jingu Apps, an LBS-based mobile instant messaging and friend-finding service. The company has reinforced its acquired assets with its traffic and monetization platform called TRACE, which stands for ‘Traffic, Revenue and Content Engine.’

Rebellion isn’t yet working with bankers, instead preferring to use M&A knowhow that its executives garnered from their prior experiences. CEO Ted Hastings was previously president of digital media rollup shop Cyberplex. As for funding, the company has taken an undisclosed amount of financing from American Capital. Although we weren’t given specific guidance on who or where Rebellion might acquire next, future transactions could be in the SEM/SEO and e-commerce sectors.

Rebellion Media’s announced M&A

Date announced Target Target summary
July 31, 2012 Universal Properties Owns domain names for purposes of Web development and search engine optimization.
July 24, 2012 Jingu Apps LBS mobile instant messaging application that enables BlackBerry and iOS users to connect with nearby users of WhatsApp, Hookt, LiveProfile, Touch and Kik mobile social networks and communities.
July 17, 2012 Scott Hastings (10 sports websites) Group of combat sports news and reference content websites, including www.fighters.com, www.fightline.com, www.mmatraining.com and www.mmaconvvert.com.
July 11, 2012 Sortable.com Provides online electronics buying advice and reference content that allows consumers to compare and rate products.

Source: The 451 M&A KnowledgeBase

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2 thoughts on “Rebellion Media set on consolidating digital media

  1. Is it fair to say it was founded? If you type in Tsavo.com into your address you get redirected to Rebellion Media – a company Ted Hastings resigned from after it was fined 4.8 million dollars by Yahoo for sending bad traffic its way.

    So, founded? No. Rebranded from Tsavo, yep!

  2. Yes, Rebellion Media has a muddled history which includes some of Tsavo Media’s assets ultimately ending up at RM by way of some other acquisitions. But Rebellion Media as it is now is a completely new, distinct company that was founded earlier this year.

    Thanks for the comment. Keep ‘em coming!

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