Refresher raises a nearly €2 million investment and plans to enter a new market
27/06/2022
Refresher, the lifestyle portal for young people, is successfully realizing its growth ambitions. The year 2022 kicked off with record sales, which in the comparative quarter rose by 104% year-on-year. After the launch of the English version and the gradual consolidation of its position on the Czech market, it intends to expand to other countries within the V4 region. In order to realize this plan, it will use the private investors' capital raised in the investment campaign on Crowdberry, supplemented by the entry of a strategic investor from the media environment - the Hungarian Central Media Group.
Refresher has hold a stable position among the most visited media portals in Slovakia for a long time. From the beginning, it has focused on a specific target group - the millennials (Y) and the so-called zoomers (Z) with growing economic power. Together with the Czech version, it has around 3 million unique users. Thanks to its well-developed competence in native advertising and its ability to reach with its content the target audience, Refresher manages to maintain interesting collaborations with major advertisers and to achieve significant revenues in this area in particular.
In 2021, the company achieved consolidated revenues of EUR 1.8 million (up 77% year-on-year). Refresher continues its positive growth curve this year - the brand entered the new year with an English domain, new additions to the team and new premises. All of this compounded by more than 100% year-on-year revenue growth in the first quarter and a nearly EUR 2 million investment secured by the investment platform Crowdberry.
"I am extremely pleased that several local private investors and a strategic one from abroad have joined the Voice of the Modern Generation. Thanks to the investment, we will be able to continue to grow, improve the quality of content, inspire, educate and entertain our target audience in Slovakia, the Czech Republic and other markets," Gábor Boros, CEO and founder of Refresher.
Refresher plans to use the investment mainly to accelerate its expansion in the Czech Republic as well as other Central European markets. At the same time, it wants to focus on new projects, expand its content monetization capabilities and strengthen its team. "Investment-wise, this is a unique case of combining the capital of private investors and a strategic investor, with which Refresher will not only gain valuable industry experience, but also a partner for entering new markets," says Jakub Bachratý, Crowdberry's investment manager.
The investment also brings a new dimension to media ownership itself, as this is a unique case in our region where the opportunity to co-own a media brand has been opened up to private - individual investors. The story was covered also by Forbes.
"The investors were particularly impressed by its ability to create original content and the way it can deliver it effectively to its users. It is Refresher's distinctive communication with its readers that has made it a 'lovebrand' among younger generations. In recent years, the founders have managed to take Refresher to historic sales and leverage the market space. The importance of this type of media for advertisers and the potential for return on investment for investors has also been confirmed by the recent entry of major e-commerce player Zalando into the global lifestyle medium Highsnobiety," adds Jakub Bachratý of Crowdberry.
It was the potential of Refresher to grow beyond Slovakia's borders and transfer its experience and proven business model to new markets that attracted a strategic investor.
“We see that the Slovak and Czech media markets are much more developed and ahead of the Hungarian market. Refresher takes a new approach to content production and business model design in response to the needs of the younger generation and advertisers. We want to incorporate this knowledge into Central’s business because we believe that continuous learning is the key to progress. With the acquisition of Refresher S.A., the Central Media Group has embarked on an international expansion and has been part of a growth process aimed at producing quality content for young people in the V4 countries,” said Zoltán Varga, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Central Media Group.
The Central Media Group is one of the largest independent publishers in Hungary with an extensive portfolio of online and print media. The company publishes 41 print magazines, special issues and manages 18 online publications that reach over half of the population every month.