Digital Publishing
2 mins read

Cafeyn acquires Blendle to become the leading European newspaper and magazine streaming platform

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Cafeyn, the European streaming platform founded in 2006, has acquired Blendle, the Netherlands’ largest news platform, creating a combined offering of more than 2500 newspapers and magazines, serving 1.5 million active users across Europe (UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Austria, and Spain). 

The acquisition is part of Cafeyn’s strategy to become the undisputed European, if not global, leader in the information streaming space within the next five years.

Founded in 2014, Blendle was backed by a number of media giants, including The New York Times, Axel Springer and Nikkei. Its original content model focused on ‘pay-per-article’ but in 2019 the company pivoted to a subscription service for €10/month. The company currently has approximately 50,000 paying subscribers.

Cafeyn and Blendle will co-exist in the takeover transition period. In the longer term they will form one organization, eventually becoming one app and brand. Both respective head offices in Paris and Utrecht will remain, with career opportunities for Blendle staff to move across various offices, as well as for staff from the Cafeyn team to move to the Netherlands.

The acquisition of Blendle is the second by Cafeyn in as many months following the successful acquisition of miLibris, the tech service provider to publishers that operates in France and Canada, in June this year. The combination of Blendle and miLibris under the Cafeyn umbrella means the company now has an active office presence in France, Netherlands, UK and Canada.

Speaking to What’s New in Publishing, Cafeyn’s CEO, Ari Assuied, said, “Blendle represented the perfect match to penetrate the Dutch market and, with the combined catalogue of both companies, to more quickly and easily enter new markets.

“Blendle has also developed notable product expertise around the article experience including clipping, tags, recommendations and audio, all of which are very complementary to the current Cafeyn product and will add additional value the joined company will benefit from. The ambition moving forward is to expand globally, bringing the best of both companies and apps together into a unified experience.” 

It comes at a time when revenues for digital magazines and newspapers have grown 22% CAGR over the past 5 years, according to PwC Digital Market Outlook 2018-2022. Consumption has surged further in 2020 due to the pandemic, with Cafeyn seeing average daily reading increases of 157% in the UK, and a 188% increase in the number of users across the Cafeyn platform.