Mikestar.com and TalentRun.com – duet rather than duel

The duel turns into a singing duet. The two online karaoke portals and former rivals Mikestar.com and TalentRun.com are merging to become a single company. Both brands are as of now under the umbrella of Mikestar GmbH. However, the two karaoke sides will remain and will continue to be available to their users in the future. The merger of these two portals now gives them a joint base of about half a million users.

Mikestar.com and TalentRun.com intend to take advantage of the merger to expand their respective core competences and to benefit from each other’s know-how. Whereas TalentRun has since its establishment in 2007 pursued the classic karaoke principle, Mikestar in this time increasingly focussed on social networks, gaming and mobile apps – among other ways by cooperating with big companies in the sector like Deutsche Telekom and the VZ networks (studiVZ, schülerVZ, meinVZ).

Half a million users – six-figure investment
“The former competitors have now become strong partners. That makes many things easier and actually does yield the much-vaunted synergistic benefits. We are now by far the largest karaoke platform in Germany. And we are also exceptionally well prepared for the future: the two parties’ investors, including Neuhaus Partners and High-Tech Gründerfonds, see the potential and are investing a six-figure amount in the new company. This provides us with some new opportunities for taking online karaoke in Germany further forward and establishing it,” says Monte Miersch, managing director at Mikestar GmbH.

“As a result of the merger we will now be able to focus more sharply on expanding online karaoke in Germany – in all its possible variations from the browser platform through to social games and apps for mobile phones. In so doing, Mikestar will increasingly take on the part of the gaming specialist while TalentRun is to continue to grow as a classic karaoke platform. In addition, we want to drive our white labelling concept forward – both parties were already quite successful in this area. Last but not least, skill-based gaming is a segment that will keep us busy in the foreseeable future. We therefore still have some promising projects on our to-do list,” adds Helge Hinrichs, managing director at Mikestar GmbH.

Further information and press coverage on Mikestar.com: https://boheme-pr.de/mikestar-presse

About TalentRun
TalentRun (www.TalentRun.com) facilitates Germany’s first and largest singing and casting community as well as online karaoke network. There is a choice of more than 1,900 karaoke hits to which to sing along and more than 400,000 karaoke videos as well as song recordings. Any singing enthusiast who has a PC with a broadband connection can participate. There is no need to purchase a games console. Use of the karaoke platform is free of charge.

About Mikestar
Mikestar.com is a free-of-charge online karaoke portal with an active community. It works together closely with the VZ networks (studiVZ, schülerVZ and meinVZ), for which it has integrated one of the first available applications in the social communities. Backing Mikestar.com, in an exclusive cooperative venture, is the technology of the renowned Fraunhofer Institut für Digitale Medientechnologie (IDMT).

Contact:
MIKESTAR GmbH
Zia Nadjib
Lerchenstr. 28a
22767 Hamburg
Phone: +49 40 79304353
Fax: +49 40 79304354
zn@mikestar.com

About Neuhaus Partners:
Neuhaus Partners GmbH is one of Europe’s leading venture capital companies. It invests primarily in information technology companies. Since its founding in 1998, it has acquired participating interests in 56 companies – Neuhaus Partners is the lead investor in 48 of these. Track record: two IPOs, eighteen trade sales, three buy-backs, ten insolvencies. Neuhaus Partners is currently investing from its third fund generation.

Contact:
Neuhaus Partners GmbH
Matthias Brix
Investment Manager
Jungfernstieg 30
20354 Hamburg
Tel.: +49 40 3552820
Fax: +49 40 35528239
www.neuhauspartners.com

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests risk capital in young, high-potential technology companies that convert promising research results in business success. The seed finance provided aims to enable start-ups to take their R&D project through to the creation of a prototype, a proof of concept or to market launch. High-Tech Gründerfonds provides EUR 500,000 of the seed finance and may invest up to a total of two million euros per business in subsequent rounds. Investors in this public/private partnership are the German Federal Ministry for Business and Technology, the KfW Banking Group as well as the six industrial groups of BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of about 272 million euros.

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Markus Kressmann
Senior Investment Manager
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn
Tel: +49 228 823001-00
Fax: +49 228 823000-50
m.kressmann@high-tech-gruenderfonds.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de