Genesis is a product company with offices in Kyiv, Kazakhstan, and Nigeria. It develops media outlets, dating sites, AdTech, e-commerce, and also invests in startups. Its most famous products are BetterMe, Kismia, VictoriaBrides, Jiji.ng. Its founders are Vladimir Mnogoletniy and Vasily Ulyanov. The BetterMe project is handled by Victoria Repa.

The current status of all applications of Genesis Technology Partners

iOS developers revealed the situation to AIN.UA editors. The main attention was drawn to a series of slimming and health applications called BetterMe.

According to SensorTower, in November, these applications cumulatively raised about $4 million on iOS, and the number of downloads exceeded 2 million.

The flagship project, BetterMe: Weight Loss Workout, earned more than $2 million in November and became the sixth largest App Store revenue earner in Health & Fitness category. Earlier, AIN.UA wrote about how the application was among top ranked apps in the App Store.

Currently BetterMe applications are gone – when you click on links from the official website or search results, the App Store informs about “unavailability in this region”.

BetterMe revenue and downloads estimates

It is noteworthy that only the Genesis Technology Partners account got sanctioned by Apple. Three applications of the BetterMe series are also published by the BetterMe Limited account – and they continue to work normally. But they have fewer downloads: according to SensorTower, this publisher earned in the App Store in November about $300,000 with 500,000 new downloads.

In response to a request from AIN.UA, Genesis said that it’s normal for Apple to regularly check large publishers. They did not say when the applications are expected to return to the store:

Genesis has over 15 apps. Right now, only BetterMe applications are being verified. Apple can (and this happens regularly) remove apps from its stores for a number of reasons. This is normal practice in the application development business. Now we are waiting for information from Apple on the status.

What could have happened

Developer David Barnard, who drew attention to the situation with BetterMe, told AIN.UA that before getting an official position, Apple does not see any reason to speculate on the issue. Earlier, he wrote that despite the aggressive promotion of the subscription, BetterMe application is made with high quality.

Other developers have identified several potential problems.

In particular, they note implausible content and ratio of reviews about the application.

In addition, in December 2019, users began to complain more about erroneous charges. BetterMe uses a subscription model, but offers short-term free periods (3–7 days).

The reviews for the application regularly read that the application writes off money at the start of the trial period, and not after its end. Technical support of BetterMe indicates that they do not provide a refund. Only Apple itself can do it. Write-offs reached $129 – $150.

Sources of AIN.UA, who wished to remain anonymous, and who are familiar with the rules of moderation of the App Store, did not give an unambiguous assessment of the situation.

According to them, Apple could remove the application for violating the rules for subscribing or buying fake reviews for manipulation. But since the company has not voiced its motives, it’s too early to definitely talk about it.

One of the developers also said that the situation with instant writing off of a subscription is a common problem. Apple itself is allegedly to blame for it, which for years has ignored the bug.

AIN.UA editors also contacted Apple but did not receive a response.

What is Jiji

Jiji is a portfolio asset of Ukrainian Genesis. This classified ads site that targets mobile users was launched back in 2016. In 2018, the project sidelined OLX from Nigerian market. Subsequently, OLX closed its local office and its traffic was significantly lower than that of its competitor.

The deal

According to the terms of the deal, Nigerian users of OLX will be redirected to Jiji website. In addition, Jiji has acquired the business of OLX in 4 other countries of the region: Kenia, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania. Their users will also be redirected to the new site. It is expected that the total number of monthly unique users of the project will reach 8 million.

According to Vladimir Mnogoletniy, co-founder of Genesis and head of the board of directors of Jiji, acquisition of OLX facilitates the creation of one of the largest classified ads sites in the region:

We intend to use this deal to create the largest African classified ads business and open new opportunities for the fast-growing countries of the region with the population of 300 million people. We believe that in the next 2-3 years we will become one of the top 10 classified ads projects by traffic.

The company intends to finalize the deal in April after it gets approved by the regulators. After that, the company will launch redirect to Jiji from OLX Nigeria, OLX Ghana, OLX Kenya, OLX Tanzania, and OLX Uganda.

[quotes_variant_one image=”806259″ author=”Anton Volyanskiy, CEO and co-founder of Jiji:” /]

“We have been developing Africa’s markets for 5 years now and during this time we have built the largest classified ads site in Nigeria: Jiji contains over 1 million active ads with over 6 million unique users (most of whom use an app). Over 50k professional sellers sell on Jiji and over 10k of them are paying users. We are developing the largest Shopping app in Nigeria. In the past 5 years we have been competing with Ringier, Saltside and Olx in the niche of horizontal classified ads in Nigeria, and now we are happy that we are the likely front-runner in this race.

This deal lays a solid foundation for building the largest classified ads site in Africa, world’s last addressable market. After the deal is sealed, Jiji will work across 5 markets with population of 300 million people, and we believe that in 2-3 years we will become leaders on each of those markets. We have a chance to build one of the world’s largest classified ads sites and my team works a lot in that direction.

We believe that this is a landmark deal for Ukrainian IT sector. I am not aware of any other significant deal where an export-oriented e-commerce IT company from Ukraine could compete with global behemoths (much less to make acquisitions of such scale). Olx, in our opinion, is the world’s strongest classified ads business and we are very happy about such an outcome of our joint efforts. This speaks volumes about possibilities of companies from Ukraine to compete globally in such capital intensive business models.”

The money

Genesis did not share the details of the cost of the deal. They only note that the financial side of the acquisition has been secured by Digital Spring Ventures fund. Previously, the fund invested in Genesis and Jiji itself.

According to sources of AIN.UA, the cost of the deal might vary from $1.5 mln to $3.4 mln.

According to estimates of AIN.UA, by now Jiji has received up to $10 mln of investments from various investors. In its turn, Genesis attracted $6 mln from Horizon Capital, EEGF III in 2016. The amount of investment made by Digital Spring Ventures into Genesis is unknown, the round was closed in January 2015.