January 22, 2020
Corporate
Divimove, the first Europe-wide studio and talent agency, and the shareholders of TUBE ONE Networks, an agency specialising in social media and influencer marketing, have signed an acquisition agreement. The competition authorities in Germany and Austria approved the planned acquisition. The common goal of this strategic step is to establish an integrated transnational, cross-platform digital studio and talent network in Europe.
“Our aim is to offer brands, talent, broadcasters and platforms the shortest route to everyone in Europe. We achieve this through award-winning stories produced by our digital studio UFA X, the reach of our leading talent networks in eight European markets and our team's strategic expertise. We're now looking forward to Divimove and TUBE ONE Networks joining forces to set new and, more importantly, forward-looking standards with our talent and marketing business in the German-speaking markets,” explains Divimove CEO Tobias Schiwek.
“Combining our wide range of services with Divimove's production resources and international network is a major milestone for us. We look forward to working together and see great potential for synergies within the RTL Group family, which will benefit our artists and clients alike. Our teams complement each other perfectly and for the most part have known each other for years, which is an ideal basis for creating a common corporate culture,” says Mark Lucht, who will continue to run TUBE ONE Networks' business, but will henceforth report to Tobias Schiwek. Denis Müller, who co-founded TUBE ONE Networks, is also remaining on board. With 250 artists and more than 300 million video views on YouTube, TUBE ONE Networks runs one of the best-known influencer networks in Germany. The Cologne-based agency has a reputation for successful marketing and for developing and managing high-reach influencers. Its portfolio currently reaches several million users on other social video platforms, such as Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Following the green light given by the competition authorities in Germany and Austria, TUBE ONE Networks is now part of RTL Group subsidiary Divimove. Together, the two entities employ more than 240 people and further growth is planned for the future, with 20 vacancies currently waiting to be filled. Previously, early in 2019, the multi-award-winning digital studio UFA X was merged with Divimove to form an integrated powerhouse for the production, aggregation and monetisation of short- and long-format video content in Europe. Since summer 2019, the business of the Scandinavian video network United Screens has also been combined with Divimove. So the takeover of TUBE ONE Networks marks another important milestone in the combined entity’s growth strategy, with a view to expanding its leading position in one of the most important core markets.
