Since the beginning of 2020, online business aggregators have seemingly taken over. For example, Amazon FBA aggregators have received media attention and investor curiosity after the digital aggregation market reached USD 14 billion, according to Entrepreneur. Individuals in this industry speculate that growing competition amongst digital businesses will create more profitable internet content. So, the time for aggregation is now.
While ecommerce business conglomerates buy profitable companies with loyal audiences, other sorts of aggregators have entered the market. Digital demand aggregators claim a slightly different model and are using investor interest to acquire content websites. Today, thousands of content websites or blogs already receive massive organic search–and aggregators intend to acquire, grow, and further monetize these assets.
In 2021, TreasureHunter entered the “business roll-up” industry with their own aggregator model. Currently, the team is purchasing content websites in various verticals from asset owners who are thought leaders and content creators.
“With TreasureHunter, we want to revolutionize the digital content segment and give small websites and blogs the exact tools, resources, and partners we could have only dreamed of back when we established our first blogs in 2013,” said Benjamin Schardt the Co-Founder & Co-CEO of TreasureHunter who started his entrepreneurial experience with his own blog.
Digital Aggregation Goes Gangbusters
It’s no secret that large companies have been buying smaller businesses for years. Yet in 2022, the pandemic-fueled business climate has produced several large digital aggregators in one short timespan.
Digital roll-ups “are the aggregation of smaller companies into larger firms, creating a potentially compelling path for equity value,” according to TechCrunch. “…roll-ups often achieve much greater exit multiples, known as ‘multiple arbitrage,’ so it’s no surprise that the trend is making its way online.”
The leaders at TreasureHunter plan to acquire content websites that deal in certain niches–think travel and foodie blogs. These content websites have been created and maintained by entrepreneurs who are also passionate “doers” in their field.
After acquiring websites from these asset owners, TreasureHunter’s team hopes to increase output where individual blog owners and their tinier teams currently struggle. With larger teams of professionals, the aggregators at TreasureHunter plan to cut operating costs of these blogs, increasing advertising revenue, and create more helpful content that preserves the site’s unique DNA.
“We are leveraging the strong collaborations with respect to marketing, advertising, content management, and creating synergies between technology our teams are using to enable massive growth,” continued Schardt. “This is growth that would not be possible for the asset, stand-alone.”
The Current Climate of Online Aggregation
Even people living under a rock would have heard that ecommerce skyrocketed during the pandemic. Everything under the sun–shopping, learning, communication, work, and more–all had to be done online. While the COVID-19 storm raged, aggregating firms like Berlin Brands Group, Thrasio, and Razor Group began to acquire ecommerce businesses.
The success of the aggregator business model has kept investors’ money flowing to other digital aggregators—especially those who doe business on Amazon. In 2021, 41% of all the USA’s ecommerce sales occurred through Amazon’s marketplace. TreasureHunter is a startup with a team that plans to differentiate themselves from Amazon FBA aggregators by acquiring digital entities in other areas where ecommerce is influenced.
The Future of Digital Business Aggregation
With investor funding coming in, the TreasureHunter crew is onboarding newly-acquired assets. The startup’s leadership is betting on their differentiated aggregator model to find future success. As many businesses hope to control the massively-influential Amazon market, other digital aggregators are buying up digital property where individuals are influenced by digital content to make purchases online.
Given the 32 million (and growing) active content portals with audiences in the US and Central Europe, companies like TreasureHunter are predicting greater competition and a growing need for online assets with secure audiences. If aggregation is indeed the future for digital businesses, the internet’s users will start to see a new landscape unfold.
