Australia’s fastest growing local services platform, Oneflare has recently acquired Word of Mouth Online (WOMO), the country’s largest customer reviews website.
With hundreds of thousands of reviews posted to the site in Australia, WOMO is the largest online reviews site in the country. The user-generated directory where people share the experience they have with businesses, both good and bad, has 175,000 businesses and 420,000 reviews and testimonials, more than Truelocal and Yellow Pages.
With thousands of local service providers in any given area, it’s often difficult to decide on the best and most trustworthy business to work with. With WOMO now joining Oneflare, the company can now offer an additional source of consumer recommendations and reviews.
A match made in start-up heaven
Founded by Fiona Adler and Brad Bond back in 2007 in Melbourne, WOMO has significantly grown its staff and revenue over the last four years.
WOMO will maintain a separate public profile and brand, while utilising Oneflare’s operational resources to get customer reviews in front of more people’s eyeballs and help more businesses reap the fruits of a great online reputation.
In a deal whose terms remain undisclosed, all WOMO employees and management have joined Oneflare, and will now form the company’s Melbourne presence.
Marcus Lim, co-founder and CEO of Oneflare, (pictured right above with co-founder Adam Dong) said the acquisition of WOMO will strengthen his platform in its mission to become the most trusted source for local services in Australia.
“WOMO is the go-to community for advice, reviews and real information from real customers about all kinds of local businesses – be they tradespeople, health clinics, beauty salons, hairdressers, removalists, accountants, mechanics, or any other type of local business,” he pointed out.
“Consumers rely increasingly on these reviews and testimonials when making purchase decisions. Together, Oneflare and WOMO now account for a significant proportion of all independent local business reviews in the country,” he explained.
“This aligns closely with our vision of being Australia’s most trusted source of local services.”
“We are aiming to do to local services what Carsales has done to the motor vehicle industry and Seek has done to employment,” Lim boldly declared. “The acquisition of WOMO is an important step to achieving that goal.”
Fiona Adler, co-founder and CEO of WOMO, said joining the Oneflare team would be a huge benefit for Australians looking to find trustworthy and quality businesses and that they are excited about this next chapter for WOMO and look forward to combining forces with the Oneflare team.
“WOMO has always been about connecting consumers with good businesses and helping good businesses to get the recognition they deserve,” she remarked. “The team remains committed to this goal, and now with Oneflare behind us, we’re looking forward to helping even more people use customer reviews to find the best businesses for their needs.”
A start-up on fire, in name and in practice
Launched just four years ago, Oneflare now has over 60,000 registered businesses across Australia, and has processed more than $100 million worth of jobs to date. And every week the platform generates more thousands of job leads for cleaners, removalists, electricians, renovators, gardeners, and the like.
With the acquisition of WOMO, the Oneflare Group now sees over one million unique visitors each month, representing a five-fold increase over the past year.
Oneflare has reached a number of other milestones in the last 12 months; tripled its user base and staff, grown revenue by 400 per cent, acquired Australia’s largest online renovations community, Renovate Forum, increased traffic by over 500 per cent and raised $1.5 million in capital.
It was also ranked 19th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 in Asia Pacific for 2014.
Oneflare is clearly one very hot flare!
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