Olswang has advised ITYIS Siglo XXI, leading Spanish internet services company, on the sale of the recipe website "Mis Recetas" to the Tokyo listed company Cookpad Inc.
A user-generated content platform for sharing recipes, Mis Recetas has approximately 6 million monthly users, with its mobile app ranking No. 1 in the Food & Beverage category for 17 Spanish speaking countries. Around 70% of the users accessing the website are from countries other than Spain, such as Mexico and Argentina. The Alicante-based firm ITYIS Siglo XXI has grown from being a small family start up business to one of Spain's leading Internet media companies in terms of user numbers, web content and apps for mobile, with an aggregate traffic of 50 million visits per month. Its biggest sites are: euroresidentes.com,mis-recetas.org, estudiantes.info.
Based in Tokio, Cookpad Inc. owns Japan's most popular recipe and gastronomy site. It receives about 39,5 million unique users per month visiting the website to access its 1.5 million recipes. As a result of the transaction, Mis Recetas will from now on operate via the subsidiary Cookpad Spain S.L., with headquarters in Alicante.
With a cross-border team of professionals, Olswang's international Corporate team specialises in advising internet and technology high growth companies throughout all stages of their development: incorporation and founder's agreements, angel and venture capital financings through mergers and acquisitions. The firm's expertise in supporting global IP-rich Technology, Media and Telecommunications companies includes recent corporate transactions such as advising leading Chinese B2B e-commerce company JQW on its admission to the London Stock Exchange's AIM and acting for iROKOtv, Africa's leading online media distribution website, in an $8m funding round.
Eduardo Coca, Partner at Olswang, commented: "This transaction is a good example of our ability to combine our in depth knowledge of the Spanish internet start-up ecosystem with our international M&A capabilities."
The Olswang team was led by Madrid-based Partner Eduardo Coca, who joined the firm last September. Eduardo was supported in this transaction by Associate Camilo Luna, who worked together with the Tax, Employment and TMT teams.
