Bemobi goes into energy deal can match telecom in 3 years
Bemobi, which merges content and payment solutions with communications operators, enters the energy sector – a three-time larger transaction market. The company has signed two commercial agreements to process part of the payments from Energisa and Equatorial clients.
This step is part of the revenue diversification strategy that started after the public subscription of Bemobi a year and a half ago. Before the offer, the company had more than 80 % of its revenues come from the gaming and applications distribution platform on mobile devices – a model that works as a kind of “Netflix application”.
(Bemobi receives those operators in the revenue share model). After the public subscription, Pedro Ripper CEO performed two mergers and purchases – purchasing M4U and Tiaxa – and put Bemobi in the payment and microfinance sectors. Today, these two sectors already represent 40 % of the company’s revenues.
Another 25 % of the vertical SAAS comes, as it sells management programs for telecommunications operators; And 35 % of the application platform subscriptions. The agreements concluded with Energisa and Equatorial include M4U technology, which provides comprehensive payment solutions to telecommunications companies.
This package includes everything from the anti-fraud system to the payment gate, including transactions. “About six months ago, we started searching for industries that have similar challenges [communications], and we saw that distribution companies face very similar problems,” Riber told the Brazil Journal.
According to him, the distributors face three main challenges: the failure to pay; The high cost of collection (where a large part of the bills is still paid in the lottery); And organizational changes, with the potential launch of the free power market for the final consumer.
Bemobi solution helps to treat the three. He said: “By converting [payment] to digital, you already reduce the cost of collection.” In addition, “We are able to provide the option to pay the bill in installments and through various channels, such as WhatsApp, the website and the application, which tends to reduce the low debt and build customer loyalty, which will be very important when opening the market.”
The CEO said that bemobi is negotiating with all the main distributors to close the contracts in the same way. The bet is the unification of itself in a market, according to Ripper, three times larger than communications in terms of annual transactions (TPV).
Bemobi is not estimated that the new sector can add to revenue immediately, but Ripper said it expects that within three years, TPV in the energy sector will be equal to what the company is doing today in the field of communications (about 6 billion Brazilian riyals) in the year). Energisa will implement the Bemobi solution in 100 % of its base, which includes more than 20 million customers.
The equator will start with 25 % of the base in the south and in some areas in the north. In this sector, bemobi does not earn any fixed amount, and its reward depends on the rate of taking the amount of the transaction. “We buy a little risk, but if we make real gains for the customer, we participate in this profit.”
The movement comes at a time when bemobi shares are traded at about 40 % less than the initial public subscription – a decrease that seems shy even compared to other technology companies. But in terms of complications, the pressure has been much greater, since the company has doubled in the past twelve months, the CEO said.
A year ago, bemobi was trading about 12 times in Ebitda. Today, the double is 3.5x. Looking at this reality, Riber said that the company is facing a dilemma: -purchasing its shares or doing more integration and acquisitions, as I promised in the public subscription?
“We have an open program to rebuild and then we’ll end, we will open another program! As long as the value is at this level, we will continue to do so.” But you cannot let good deals pass. We must calibrate so that we can do the two things. “
