Maps invests more than half a million euro in Roialty while increasing its stake from 46.10% to 100%. Roialty, with over 80% recurring revenues, focuses on sentiment analysis monitoring, brand reputation and the customer experience. Its clients include big companies and public administrations.
Maps Spa has acquired 100% of Roialty Srl, innovative start-up that produces technological solutions for the digital loyalty sector for big companies and public administrations. Specifically, the company has been focusing on online communications, blogs and social listening for years, with a view to measuring the reputations of its clients, as well as the trends and opinions (with its OneVoice product) on the web and social media channels. Its products are used, both directly and indirectly, to achieve various objectives, concerning the optimisation of marketing campaigns and online promotions, as well as to support customer loyalty activities.
The company has acquired its main contracts in the financial services, utilities, fashion and automotive sectors. The growth and success of Roialty comes from carefully profiling users, by acquiring external unstructured data (mainly from social media, but also from an IoT perspective and other personal data flows), and thanks to the dynamic customer experience personalization, cross-referencing the user’s interests and behaviours to provide the most accurate digital experience through various channels (web, mobile and social media networks).
The acquisition and investment in Roialty is part of a growth plan that is focused on the market areas that show the greatest need for change and the greatest potential for development in the near future. Regarding the data from the Loyalty Observatory (concerning the end of 2018), the global loyalty management market will grow from $1.9 billion (2017 figures) to $6.96 billion in 2025 (CAGR +19.54%). This increase is linked to the growing demand for increasingly personalised browsing and shopping experiences created around the profile and interests of each individual user.
This is what Marco Ciscato, Maps President, had to say: “Maps is further strengthening and completing its product range in the field of Digital Transformation solutions for the Customer Experience with this transaction. In addition to including new solutions with recurring revenues (>80%) and a high EBITDA (tending to exceed 30%) within the company scope, we are seeing synergies in improving the Personalisation of the Customer Experience using artificial intelligence. The Customer Experience Personalisation topic will increasingly become a strategic element that companies can use to grow their business and increase customer loyalty.”
Maurizio Pontremoli, CEO of Maps, also expressed his satisfaction, emphasising how “the acquisition of 100% of Roialty, which recorded a production value of € 534,000 and an EBITDA margin of around 21% in 2018, will allow us to implement synergies at various levels. Specifically, Roialty will benefit from our Group’s expertise and support in terms of sales & marketing, communications and access to mid-large corporate customers, which currently accounts for around 90% of our turnover. In addition to these aspects, some services will be centralised, such as administration and HR, with a view to optimisation and control. In regards to the product offer, our technologies based on artificial intelligence will allow us to experience an immediate and tangible increase in results, as we will be able to not only make better use of the various channels of interaction, but also to predict the best way of engaging the user to maximise revenue growth and customer loyalty.”