NewsPaper Group Pay $20M For Stake In Kaango
November 16, 2007 – 10:05 amSeems like Hearst and MediaNews group read my post about the newspapers. They have just dumped $20 million into Kaango, a classifieds site that has deep relationships with the papers. Kaango’s motto is post a classified Print-to-web, Web-to-web, and Web-to-print on one platform.
The firm was founded in 2003 by CEO Michael Kranitz, who had founded Denver-based DriveOff.com in 1999 and sold it to an MSN/Ford joint venture in 2000.
The exact percent ownership was not released but majority ownership could put a valuation on Kaango to around $30 - 50 Million.
2 Responses to “NewsPaper Group Pay $20M For Stake In Kaango”
But aren’t newspaper classifieds dying?
By Dave Dugdale on Nov 16, 2007
I think this is mostly a strategic move to try to capture more national ad dollars. Currently, if Ford wants to advertise nationally, they have to work with the papers individually. Having it on one platform would seem to increase the ability to sell to more national advertisers. Last week the papers announced a partnership with each other to have a central national sales team selling across all papers. Do I think this will generate more sales? I think it will be marginal. At the end end of the day, if there is value with the papers, whether online or print, consumers will come back. If there is no value and low ROI, repeat customers will be slim. If the goal is to increase national ad dollars, the question becomes, is ford or P and G already advertising across all of the papers? If not, what is the reasoning? Is is because there is not a central platform, or is it because there is no ROI?
By Dan on Nov 16, 2007