Why We Acquired MeMe Live

Joseph Phua
Nov 2 · 3 min read

M17 Group announced the acquisition of MeMe Live yesterday. This deal brings our market share in Developed Asia to over 60%. We now have leadership positions in almost all markets in the region, and have expanded aggressively towards the West, and across industries (e.g. live commerce).


The last 18 months have been quite the journey.

M17’s launch of M17 Services: HandsUp Live Commerce in 2019 Q1

Launch of HandsUP Live

We completed the acquisition of Migo / FBBUY and launched HandsUP live shopping, a B2B SaaS product that is expected to exceed 300m USD in annual GMV.

Turned profitable in 2019 Q1, remain so till now

After a huge effort by everyone on the team, we moved towards profitability in Q1 of this year, and have since stayed profitable while we chug along towards the path of achieving our vision to become the Global Leader in Live Media

Golden Feather Awards 2019

Golden Feather Awards 2019

We hosted the 3rd Annual Golden Feather Awards this year in Taipei, thousands attended, honoring the top live talents in Asia.

Mayor of Taipei live on 17.Live

We have been gearing up for the 2020 elections. News, politics, variety shows, trivia game shows, music competitions and more. All part of our push to diversify what it means to be live

Launch of US Market: 17.Live = LIVIT

Launch of 17.Live in the US

We launched 17.Live in the US officially under the name LIVIT and have grown into a 30 person strong team based out of LA. The US market holds so much potential and we are already seeing the unlocking of some of that in the 3 months that we have launched.

LIVIT Halloween Live Competition at the W Hotel

And this brings us to today. We announced the acquisition of MeMe Live yesterday. We acquired MeMe Live for 3 reasons:

  1. Consolidation of global livestreaming market: As the #1 livestreaming player in global markets, and as part of our plan towards crossing 1b USD in annual revenues, we will be consolidating the market through acquisitions and increasing market share via organic expansion. MeMe Live is the first of a few acquisitions to come
  2. Entry into new markets: e.g. India where MeMe is already a sizable player in
  3. Continued content diversification: Adding a platform into the group allows us to double down on our content diversification strategy. We continue to bring new content types and genres to our live media platforms and expect to further expand on this with MeMe

I spent the last few days working through upcoming plans with the team and it excites me to think about what the next 18 months will bring for M17 Group. We had a record breaking month in October. Exceeded all our performance metrics across geographies. I’m due to speak with our MENA team in Dubai next week, to officially launch our MENA office before I head to meet with the MeMe team to discuss plans for 2020.

UNBOX in Dubai, our home for the next few months
MeMe team at HQ

Watch this space in the coming months. Exciting times ahead

Joseph Phua

Written by

CEO, M17 Group

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