Mobile messaging platform and social network Mxit has acquired Cape Town-based start-up Motribe for an undisclosed amount of money. Motribe was founded two years ago by Nic Haralambous and Vincent Maher and is 30% owned by local start-up investment firm 4Di Capital.
Motribe, which employs eight staff in addition to Haralambous and Maher, has been working with Mxit on various applications for the past year, including MxPix, an image alteration and sharing application in the vein of Instagram but designed for feature phones. MxPix attracted more than a million users in just over a month from its launch.
Haralambous, currently CEO of Motribe, is leaving the company in the wake of the acquisition and taking time off before considering his next move, though he suggests he would like to remain involved in start-ups.
Maher, Motribe’s technology head, will become co-head of “community” at Mxit, alongside Peter Matthaei.
Maher says the deal is all but finalized, with the final draft being run past the two companies’ legal teams. “It could be official today or tomorrow,” he says. “For all intents and purposes, it’s a done deal.”
No doubt part of the appeal to Mxit of Motribe is the company’s ability to build compelling apps that users flock to. Maher says Motribe will focus on driving further growth for Mxit and working at constantly refining the user experience.
“We’re going to go through a bit of a process to find out which parts [of Motribe] need to be integrated. Much of our work over the past year will get integrated into Mxit in some way or another,” Maher says.
Nevertheless, Motribe will keep its own office for the time being and Maher says the brand and its existing services will continue as normal.
Though Motribe is unable to disclose the terms of the acquisition, the company describes the deal as “profitable”. This makes it a great example for other local start-ups, particularly in light of its short gestation period.
“If you think about it, two years is a short period of time to build a business,” says Maher. “This is a nice example for other start-ups. Lots of entrepreneurs don’t go in to their start-up fully committed because there’s no exit plan, or they think there are limited available options in SA. It’s good to be able to show it can be done, and not even over five or 10 years.”
Maher says there appears to be ever-improving sentiment about local start-ups and their prospects. “Either that, or we’re getting better at PR,” he jokes.
“In the last year we’ve really enjoyed working with Mxit,” Maher says. “On a technical level, with such a high volume of users, [Mxit] offers the technology and scale challenges that our team really enjoys.” — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
