Wooshii valuation topped £1m
ONE-year-old internet start-up Wooshii was given a valuation of more than £1m when online marketing firm Getupdated bought a 25% stake in January.
Speaking to TheBusinessDesk, chief executive Fergus Dyer-Smith was tight-lipped on the value of the deal but admitted the business had a seven-figure value, stressing this was in the “low millions”.
“It’s not astronomical,” he said. “You can’t get that kind of [high] valuation in the UK. You could take the same business and plonk it in San Fransisco and multiply the valuation by five or 10. A lot of the people out there know the market and know what they can do with it.”
Wooshii, which specialises in linking video producers with potential customers who need content, is “crowdsourced” – meaning the content is created by users – a fashionable quality with internet investors.
Mr Dyer-Smith, a former shareholder of Manchester-based student tour operator Outgoing, set up the business in late 2009 with viral marketeers James Black and Sean Wilson of Manchester-based Underground Creative.
They secured a £40,000 investment from business angels to develop the site and another, smaller tranche of funding from Canadian investors late last year. “It’s taken this long to build a platform and a community,” said Mr Dyer-Smith, “Now we need to put ourselves out in front of people.”
It has not yet made money but is expected to move in to profit within a few months. Mr Dyer-Smith predicts a turnover of £4m this year and expects this figure to double in 2012.
Getupdated, parent company of Macclesfield-based Just Search, got involved because it was keen to push its involvement with online video. It plans to market a new service based on Wooshii’s technology has an option to acquire up to 51%, and subsequently the remaining shareholding of the company.
The business earns revenue by taking a 15% cut of fees earned through the site and plans to strike a series of corporate partnerships that would give large organisations access to its membership.
“My main role is to develop these partnerships,” said Mr Dyer-Smith. “I’m making sure we’ve got awesome people working for us and that we don’t run out of money.”
