The Miura fund has taken 40% of Wikiloc, a very popular platform in the hiking world that gives access to millions of routes created by the same users. The founders of the business, Jordi Ramot and Montserrat Jordi, have maintained 60% ownership and will continue to lead the business from the Girona headquarters.
The price of the operation is confidential. Close sources assure this newspaper that the transaction has been channeled through the Miura Impact Fund vehicle, which usually allocates between 10 and 15 million euros to each company in which it participates.
The aim of the fund is to help Wikiloc accelerate its international growth. Born in 2006, the company already has a user base of 12 million and a total of 43 million routes around the world. These sources comment that the greatest opportunity is found in southern Europe and in Spanish-speaking countries. “The Anglo-Saxon market and that of central Europe are already very competitive,” they say. To achieve the expansion, Miura will finance marketing campaigns, technological product improvements and the internationalization plan.
Wikiloc’s business is based on a freemium model, that is, it allows the user to access the service for free and obtain extra features by paying a periodic fee.
According to the latest data available in the Mercantile Registry, the company had a turnover of 5 million euros in 2021, compared to 3.2 million in 2020 and 1.7 million in 2019. With 12 people on staff, the company is highly profitable . In 2021, it obtained a net profit of 2 million euros, in 2020, 1.2 million, and in 2019, 783,000 euros.
The cited sources assure that Wikiloc maintained its double-digit growth rate in the 2022 financial year. In addition, they say that the company is convinced that its business will rise in the coming years. Since the arrival of the pandemic, healthy habits and outdoor activities have become more and more popular.
As for Miura, Wikiloc is the second operation carried out through the Impact Fund. The vehicle began last year with the commitment to invest up to 150 million euros in high-growth SMEs focused on generating social and environmental impact. The first operation was in the Madrid company Tierra Ingeniería y Paisajismo.
