Thank you, and welcome to Better Collective's webcast presentation in connection with the Q4 and full year report covering the period January 1st, 2020 to December 31st, 2020, which we release today. My name is Jesper Søgaard. I'm the co-founder and CEO of the company, and with me today are CFO Flemming Pedersen and Head of IR, Christina Thomsen. Thank you for joining in today. I'm very excited to be sharing our Q4 report with you. Strong performance in Q4 marks the ending of an unusual year of unprecedented halt in sports and general insecurity as the pandemic affected societies worldwide. Our business has proven resilient and is back on track with record high performance in Q4. I'm very proud of the way we've been steering and managing the business during these difficult times. Now, let's get going.
Please turn to page two, where we display our disclaimer regarding any forward-looking statements in this presentation. I ask you to please pay attention to this. Please turn to page three. The agenda for today's presentation is structured so that we start off with a brief introduction into our new segment reporting, which came into effect from Q4. After the introduction, we take a look at the business highlights for Q4, which will be followed by a thorough walkthrough the financials for the quarter and the full year. Hereafter, we'll share our thoughts on the future strategy and introduce our new financials targets for 2021. Last but not least, we'll take a look at some more general business updates. As always, we end the presentation with the Q&A sessions. Please turn to page four.
Before we continue the presentation, I would like to draw your attention to the change in business model following the acquisition of the Atemi Group back in October 2020. With the significantly different business models for customer acquisition, we have introduced segment reporting. The publishing segment includes organic traffic in our existing business without pay-per-click or PPC, as it's called. The paid media segment includes the Atemi Group and our existing PPC activities in Better Collective. This means that from Q4 2020 and onwards, we will operate two different business models regarding customer acquisition with different earnings profiles. The segments publishing and paid media will be measured and disclosed separately for revenue, cost, and earnings, as shown in the table on the slide. The table is a note to the accounts that can be found in the Q4 report. Please turn to page five.
COVID-19 had a significant impact from the last part of Q1 as the pandemic set a halt on major sports events, and thereby also online sports betting. Q2 was the period that was most affected until some of the major sports in Europe resumed in June. In Q3, sports calendars were still affected with amended and reduced tournament performance. Therefore, I'm happy to announce that Q4 has been largely back on track, showing strong performance. Let me give a snapshot overview of the financial and business highlights of Q4. Please turn to page six. Looking at the financial highlights, the year ended with strong performance that also continued into the new year. Our business has proven resilient and is back on track with record high performance in Q4. In this quarter, we showed strong performance with high growth, record earnings, and a satisfying NDC development.
Revenue increased by 88%, of which 32% was organic growth, and revenue doubled from Q3 2020. Our operational earnings increased by 92% to EUR 14 million. Cash flow from operations before special items was EUR 10 million, an increase of 35%. We continue to deliver a satisfying number of New Depositing Customers and of increased value due to geography and receiving operators, adding to our bank of players and laying the foundation for continued revenue growth. In Q4, we sent more than 153,000 NDCs to our partners, which equates a growth of 30% compared to the number of NDCs in the same period the year before. The amount of NDCs sent to our customers this year has naturally been affected by the headwinds COVID-19 caused.
The steep upward curve towards the end of the year proves that we are back on track thanks to an outstanding effort from our dedicated employees, and of course, also the fact that we added the Atemi Group to our business. Flemming will revert with more information into the financial performance, both to give a bit more insight into the moving parts of our business and to share some in-depth insights into the underlying performance of the business. Please turn to page seven. Let's turn to the business highlights of the quarter. On October 1st, we acquired the Atemi Group for EUR 44 million. Atemi is one of the world's largest companies specialized within lead generation for iGaming through paid media and social media advertising. This acquisition is a very important step for us to reach our strategic target of becoming the leading sports betting aggregator in the world.
Better Collective was awarded Affiliate of the Year at the EGR North America Awards 2020 and also received the award for Commitment to Compliance by an Affiliate Company at the VIXIO GamblingCompliance Global Regulatory Awards 2020 for the second year in a row. Receiving both of these awards made me very proud. In two separate transactions for a combined price j ust above EUR 1 million.
We on the November 2nd acquired the platform zagranie.com, which is a Polish sports betting media brand, and irishracing.com, which is the leading horse racing platform in Ireland. These two small acquisitions fit well into our existing platform of sports media brands. Just after the quarter, we exercised the option to acquire a further 70% of the shares in Mindway AI for a total price of EUR 2.3 million, bringing the ownership to 90%. Mindway AI specializes in software solutions based on artificial intelligence and neuroscience for identifying, preventing, and intervening in at-risk and problem gambling. The fact that we are now majority owners of Mindway underpins our focus on that betting shall be fun and entertaining, and that any problem gambling shall be detected as early as possible and taken care of.
We are very proud that we have played a role in bringing Mindway's products from academic research into commercial products that are now being sold to operators around the world. I can also happily reveal that January revenue reached EUR 13 million, a growth of 78% versus 2019, of which 16% was organic growth. The organic growth was recorded despite a strong comparison towards January 2019. It was partly driven by the U.S. business, where total revenue doubled and where revenue from the affiliate business from sports betting and casino exceeded a growth of 200%. We have obtained significant positions in the U.S. market, not least in the newly opened states, Michigan and Virginia. Touching on regulatory issues, Germany implemented an interim regime to govern gambling from October 2020. In this connection, unlicensed operators needed to withdraw from the market.
Several years ago, we decided to only work with operators which we knew would be part of a regulated German market. Therefore, our performance in the German market was strong in Q4, and we expect this to continue during the interim regime. A more permanent regulation is expected to be implemented from July 2021. We believe that the value of the German market will remain at least the same for Better Collective and continue to be an attractive market for us. In summary, we have shown strong performance, and I'm very satisfied with the Q4 performance and the start of 2021. We have really been taking new big steps in building our business, while we at the same time have showed solid financial performance despite a year of strong headwind.
Now please turn to page eight, where I will pass on the words to Flemming, who will go into more details about our financial performance.
Thanks, Jesper. Let's look at the financials for Q4, starting on the next page nine. Zooming in on Q4, total revenue was EUR 37 million, which was an 88% growth compared to the same period last year. The organic revenue growth was 32%. Q4 was back on track with strong growth in underlying KPIs, which I will revert to in a minute. Strong performance was recorded in both publishing and paid media. In paid media, we already in Q4 accelerated the partial transition from CPA to revenue share. This comes at a short-term cost on both top line and earnings. However, for selected operators, we are very confident that this will have a very positive return during the customer lifetime. Revenue share accounted for 48% of the revenue and 53% of player-related revenue, with 38% coming from CPA, 5% from subscription sales, and 9% from other income.
The addition of the Atemi Group as of October 1st has increased the CPA element of the revenue stream from 13% in Q3 to 38% in Q4. Revenue for the full year was EUR 91.2 million, with an implied growth of 35%. We saw a high number of NDCs with more than 153,000 in the quarter, a growth of 30%. For the full year, NDCs exceeded 437,000, similar level to 2019. This means that despite the cancellation and postponement of major sports events due to the COVID-19 pandemic, NDC performance was maintained. Please turn to page 10. Operational earnings in Q4 on the EBITDA level increased 92% to EUR 13.7 million. The group EBITDA margin was 37%, and zooming in on the segments, the EBITDA margin was very high at 52% in publishing and 13% in paid media.
In Q4, significant costs were added in paid media to shift business model towards revenue share and new market openings, including the U.S., which dampens earnings short-term. The high margin in publishing is a result of high revenue growth while still maintaining a cost level that is below Q1 2020, following the cost reduction program that we initiated on the back of the COVID-19 close downs. We have gradually increased cost in publishing again, however, at a controlled pace. The full-year EBITDA margin remained above the financial target of 40%, even with the consolidation of the Atemi Group for the full quarter. That presents lower margins than the publishing business. The operational earnings for the full year before special items increased 34% to EUR 36.7 million. For Q4, the effective tax rate was 23% against 25% in Q4 2019. Earnings per share increased by 143% to EUR 0.18 per share.
This is a result of the solid performance, including value-adding acquisitions that have been financed at low cost. Please turn to page 11. Moving on to the cash flow and balance sheet. In Q4, operating cash flow before special items was EUR 10 million, an increase of 35%, resulting in a cash conversion of 71%. For the full year, the cash conversion rate was 99%. At the end of Q4, capital reserves were EUR 43 million. For the full-year cash flow from operations before special items was EUR 38 million, which equates to an increase of 44% year-over-year. Acquisitions and other investments reduced cash flow with EUR 68 million, of which EUR 33 million was in Q4. Following the acquisition of the Atemi Group, the debt leverage is 1.66, still being low, also considering that this is based upon historical earnings.
We believe that we have further room to expand the bank financing facilities in connection with potential future M&A transactions. Please turn to page 12. Coming back to revenue and growth, let's take a look at some of our internal key performance indicators, i.e. sports wagering, which is the growth in underlying betting volume in our revenue share accounts, where we also have added back historical numbers from the acquired companies over time and indexed them all back to 100, starting in 2013. The numbers are derived from accounts that represent approximately 50% of all revenue share earnings. As can be seen from the graph, the underlying betting volume in these revenue share-based accounts increases significantly over time, with a steep growth in recent quarters. We mainly attribute this to the many NDCs that we have signed in recent years, 2018 throughout 2019, and also here in the recent quarter.
The COVID effect is notable in Q2, and in Q3, we saw record high performance in terms of sport wagering again in these accounts. In Q4, we see a continuation of the upcoming curve landing at index 506 for the quarter, which is very encouraging as this is a strong indicator for the increase of value in the player databases that we have built over the years. Please turn to page 13. In addition to the betting volume, we are looking at the average sports win margin on revenue share accounts, i.e. the percentage that is paid out on the volume. We have used the same indexing as in the graph shown before, and what can be seen is that the margins fluctuate over the quarters and that Q4 was at index 89.9 past average index, whereas Q3 was almost record low at 75.
The average index number here is 88.2 over the period shown. The volatility in sports win margin is something we view as being transient, but it can, of course, affect short-term financial performance up or downwards. Please turn to page 14. As a continuation of the KPIs just shown and with our more widespread geographical reach, we have, in connection with this full-year report, decided to share some insights into the distribution of the underlying sports wagering in the revenue share accounts. As can be seen from the graph, the Americas continue to be an increasingly more important part of our business. As mentioned, we are seeing strong momentum in the U.S., and in recent years, we have also seen strong growth in South America. Looking ahead, we expect the Americas to grow significantly with expected upcoming regulation in more U.S. states, Brazil, and Canada. Please turn to page 15.
For the full year 2020, we landed in line with our financial targets, that I will come back to on the next slide. Despite the halt in sports and by way of our cost-saving program, our growth rates were kept intact, as you can tell from these graphs. We managed to absorb the newly acquired Atemi Group and still meet our earnings target of more than 40% EBITDA margin. This combined makes us very satisfied with this year's performance. Looking at the last three years' revenue development, Better Collective has grown revenue with an annual average of 50%, and growth rates in operational earnings and cash flow have followed, while we still have allowed room for investments in brand building, products, and new market openings. Please turn to page 16.
Looking at our short to medium financial targets, which were decided upon by the board of directors in connection with our IPO in 2018. This year, 2020, that we are reporting on marks the last year in the range of the financial targets, which are average targets set over the three-year period. Since 2017, we have acquired businesses and assets for around EUR 250 million. The financing of this has been approximately EUR 100 million from issuing new equity, EUR 80 million in operational cash flows, and the rest from bank facilities. For 2020 in isolation, the organic growth target came in a bit below. The compounded annual growth rates for revenue in the period was 50%, of which 14% was annual growth.
Please turn to page 17 and the word back to Jesper.
Thanks, Flemming. Continuing along the same lines, I'll present our financial targets for 2021. Please turn to page 18. With the expiration of the targets shown on the previous slide, and with the new segment reporting, the board of directors have decided on the following targets for the financial year 2021. The revenue targets are based on continued high growth, with an implied growth rate of more than 80% and revenue exceeding EUR 160 million in 2021. While M&A remains a key focus for Better Collective, potential new M&A transactions are not included and serve as an additional growth driver. The earnings target maintains the focus on high earnings with an implied combined margin of more than 30% and an EBITDA exceeding EUR 50 million in 2021.
It is a reflection on continued high earnings margin in the publishing segment, as seen throughout 2018 to 2020, and lower margins in the paid media segment, combined with further investment in paid media in the short-term. After 2021, we expect the earnings margin in paid media to increase. Note the change from EBITA in recent financial targets to EBITDA. The debt leverage target allows for an increased financing capacity compared to previous years, in alignment with the continued M&A focus. M&A continues to shape our business and performance and is a key strategic objective as we strive to become the leading sports betting aggregator in the world. Please turn to page 19. The new targets can be summarized as shown on this slide, comparing with the previous years. Please turn to page 20.
Now, let's look at some general business updates, where we have decided to focus on our products, our recent M&A transactions, and the emerging U.S. business. Please turn to page 21. I'll start with an overview of some of our products and their reach. Our products cover more than 30 languages and attract millions of users worldwide. As the illustration depicts, we have international brands with a global reach and regional brands with a more local reach. This means that our regional brands are tailored according to specific regions or countries and their respective regulations, specific sports, betting behaviors, user needs and languages. Our flagship brands, bettingexpert and HLTV, are aimed at worldwide audience. The recently acquired betCompare currently has a strong U.K. presence, but over time the site will be rolled out to a wider international audience.
Our U.S. sites include VegasInsider, ScoresA nd Odds, and RotoGrinders, that all have a federal reach. We believe that VegasInsider has a long-term potential to become the home of U.S. sports bettors, and in the coming years, we'll continue to invest in quality content for our users. I'll get back to our U.S. business in a few minutes. Other regional brands are here exemplified by some of the strong European household names, such as the Greek Betarades, the German Wettbasis, and the Danish SpilXperten. Each tailored to their respective region and languages. As always, we remain focused on building strong brands, mainly within sports betting, that are informative and entertaining for our users, as we want to be the go-to place when it comes to finding and sharing information related to sports and betting. Please turn to page 22.
Our M&A strategy was the cornerstone of our decision to IPO Better Collective in 2018. During 2020, we completed acquisitions of approximately EUR 80 million. I'll briefly recap the two larger acquisitions, as they are both strategically important for our growth trajectory. In March 2020, we welcomed HLTV.org to the Better Collective group, adding esports to our portfolio just prior to the lockdown of sports. HLTV.org is the world's largest community site within Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CS:GO. Traffic to the HLTV website has increased significantly in the past year, not least during the lockdown of regular sports, and the overall interest in esports betting is still growing. HLTV is a very strong media with global reach in an emerging sport that is the largest of the esports when it comes to betting.
In October 2020, we completed the acquisition of the Atemi Group, which is one of the world's largest companies specialized within lead generation for iGaming through paid media and social media advertising. During Q4, we have successfully integrated the acquired paid media business, which has brought Better Collective in the absolute leading position when it comes to premium customer acquisition for the online operators. It is noteworthy that the earning margin within paid media typically is lower than within organic traffic due to the direct payments to the companies providing platforms for online advertising. At the time of acquisition, the outlook for 2020 implied earnings margin in Atemi was around 20%.
Given the plans for expansion of the paid media business to new markets, including the U.S., and a gradual change of business model towards revenue share, investments will affect the earnings margin short-term, resulting in an expected earnings margin of above 10%, and focus will be on absolute growth and long-term value creation. We expect to continue being acquisitive as a very important part of our strategy. There are so many interesting companies that we can see would fit well into the Better Collective group, and with 20 acquisitions completed, we believe we have the right setup for acquiring and integrating companies. Our M&A pipeline is larger than ever, and we also see the opportunity to acquire larger companies than before. Now, let's turn our attention to the U.S. market. Please turn to page 23.
Taking a look at our U.S. business, our key brands include the several websites VegasInsider, ScoresA nd Odds, and RotoGrinders. We also operate a number of state-focused websites. We believe that VegasInsider has long-term potential to become the home of U.S. sports bettors, and in coming years, we'll continue to invest in quality content for our users. 2020 has been a challenging year, however. Our U.S. business has been steadily growing. Looking at U.S. affiliate revenue, the year-on-year growth for January has been more than 200%. Within affiliation, we see the most growth in sports betting, whereas daily fantasy sports shows a lower but stable growth. As with most other markets, the U.S. has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.
Conversely, the pandemic seems to have led to a shift in the readiness to regulate online betting and gambling in a number of states with a view to increase tax revenues to restore the economy. Most recently, we have seen three larger states go live, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia, as well as Tennessee. We are cautiously expecting that 2021 will be filled with sports activities and high levels of betting activity, and we believe that we are well-positioned to take our part of the global market that is getting back on the growth track. Please turn to page 24. We remain highly dedicated to taking part in the emerging U.S. market, where more and more states are opening for online gambling, either just sports betting or in some states, also online casino games.
As of now, we have many strong U.S. brands. The recent Atemi acquisition is expected to power paid media efforts and grow the U.S. business. The market expectations for 2021 is a year-on-year growth in online sports betting of 80%, which we are well-positioned to take part in. Please turn to page 25. I'll finalize this presentation by highlighting the key takeaways for Q4. Q4 delivered strong performance. I'm particularly happy to report strong growth in the U.S. affiliation business. We have boosted the paid media segment significantly. We will continue to invest in this type of traffic acquisition. We look forward to 2021 with several big sports events, including the Euro 2020. We continue our M&A strategy with a pipeline as strong as ever.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to all Better Collective employees and stakeholders for their continued performance and flexibility in this extraordinary environment. The past year has really demonstrated the strong team spirit and dedication in Better Collective. This concludes our webcast presentation for Q4 2020, and we'll now pass the word back to the operator and open for questions from the audience. Thanks for listening in.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We will now begin with the question- and- answer session. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A queue. This will only take a few moments. If you wish to cancel your request, please press the hash key. Once again, please press star and one if you wish to ask a question. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. There are no questions from the telephone lines at the moment. Please continue.
Okay. We have some questions online. A question from Lars Jørgen Rasmussen. There is a lot of mergers, takeovers in the betting branch, and Better Collective is taking part in this. If it knocks on your door and it is a CEO from a big American casino company, do you let him in or do you say, "Sorry, I have no time and interest in a meeting"? I think it's a fairly hypothetical question with such a casino, but I think in general, we take any M&A dialogue that is inbound. Whether it's relevant is then something we deem afterwards. In general, we take any dialogue related to M&A. The next question comes from Erik Lindholm-Röjestål. Good morning. Looking at your 2021 guidance, you got our margin for publishing above 40%, and this was 48% in 2020.
Is there any reason to why the margin should decline in publishing in 2021? How should we view this guidance for publishing?
Flemming Pedersen here. I think I'll answer that. We guide above 40%, and it's of course correct that the performance was higher in 2020. Going back in time, we decided to reduce costs significantly during Q2, as some will recall, as a response to the halt of sports. Coming back with high revenue performance, that actually led to a higher margin than the 40%. We cannot rule out that we will maintain this level, but we have gradually increased the cost base again, still being lower than before the COVID-19. We want to have the room to still invest in our product platforms, the tech setup that we have, et cetera. That's why we stick to the guidance above 40%, but of course, will not rule out that it can be higher than exactly 40%. That's what lies within that guidance.
We have a follow-up question also from Erik Lindholm. I'll read the question. "For paid media, you guide a margin above 10%, and in Q4 this was 13%. Would you say this 13% level is indicative for the coming quarters, or can it go even lower than this?" The guidance that we give is that we want to stay above 10%, allowing room for investing in a shift, or partial shift I should say, from CPA to revenue share, and also invest in new market openings where it takes some time before new campaigns are launched until they are profitable. We are staying above 10%, but really it is a deliberate choice from our side to these investments. When we took over the Atemi Group, it was running at approximately 20%.
We could easily go there again, but have decided to take these investments in order to secure long-term value.
Jesper here, just to elaborate a bit more on that. Due to the in-depth knowledge and very skilled BI team and insights that we have into player values across markets, across operators, we have taken quite drastic steps here. As an example, with some operators, we are actually comfortable taking the full cost of acquiring a customer and working solely on revenue share with an operator. That is quite unusual in paid media activities. Bearing the full cost, and then sort of over the lifetime, we would get the return. That we are comfortable with in certain cases. Next question coming from Mateusz Juroszek. Do you have any plans for Netherlands? Yes, we do. It's a very exciting market that is regulating this year in the second half of the year.
We already have an interesting asset there, which we are not monetizing, but preparing for the market. It is in general a market where we have done internally a feasibility study. It's high on our priority list. A market that we keep a very close eye on. Another question from Erik Lindholm. "Looking at your U.S. business, here you obviously had very strong growth in affiliation in January. Can you say something on what percentage of revenues the U.S. stands for now and how much of this is affiliation?
Flemming here. Unfortunately, we cannot answer this question as we are not publishing these numbers. We cannot go deeper into that. The majority of the acquisitions that we or the first acquisition we did was within daily fantasy sports, whereas the later acquisition was in, you can say VegasInsider ScoresA nd Odds more directed towards affiliation. Affiliation has come from the smaller part and now is growing fast with the new market openings. Sorry, we cannot go deeper into the details here.
Another question from Erik Lindholm. "Jesper, you said that the M&A pipeline is stronger than ever. Can you talk a bit what sort of M&A opportunities you are seeing out there, and do you feel like you could do more M&A already now in the short term?" Regarding M&A, it's very much up to timing. How the pipeline progresses can be very hard to predict. With the statement of the strongest pipeline ever and also larger targets in that pipeline, I can say that we of course expect an eventful 2021 on that part, but it's just impossible to predict the timing of such. It's really a focus area of ours. Yeah, it's important. Another question, and please excuse my pronunciation if I get it wrong, from Massimiliano Marchisio. "Good morning. What levels of organic growth are you expecting beyond 2021?
What's your current expected geographic revenue split?" I can just say sort of high level on organic growth. When we look further years out, we look at the underlying growth in the market and sort of have an ambition of at least being in line with that. We haven't guided specifically on that, but we are in a growing market, and obviously our business should reflect that.
I think during our presentation today, we lifted a bit some of the performance in sports wagering we are seeing in our revenue share accounts, that is a bit of a predictor also for what to expect, where we can see that the Americas is a growing area with increased regulation in the U.S., obviously with more states bringing online gaming into a regulated market. We see strong performance in South America. We expect to regulate a very large market and also most recently Canada is also discussing regulation. That should prone for also strong organic growth for online betting in the years to come, Of course, we are positioned to take part in that.
We also mentioned just in the question before, countries like the Netherlands where we today have zero revenue because it's not regulated, and that is a market that we expect to regulate this year. Clearly a very interesting market with high GDP and a large population. I hope that sort of came around the question. Next question is from Simon Blomquist. The question reads, "Very impressive development in U.S. Can you talk a bit about CPA revenue share contracts in the U.S., and also can you say something about CPA levels in the new states? Is it similar levels as New Jersey and Pennsylvania?" Question.
Yes, I can answer that. The majority of revenue in the U.S. is CPA-driven, and that goes for the entire market. We are operating on revenue share contracts also, but it's to a lesser extent.
That being said, it is a focus of ours, so as much as possible, we are deliberately trying to build that up. We're coming from that market being almost solely a CPA market. We see that as a longer-term development in the U.S. On the CPA levels, in general we don't see big variations from state to state. We would think that the levels are attractive, especially comparing to European player values and CPAs. A question from Erik Lindholm, "What sort of competition are you seeing for M&A right now?" It's of course very different depending on the type of target, so size and geography and so forth. It's going to be a very broad answer. In some cases, there's quite a lot of competition, and in others it's an exclusive dialogue.
It varies depending on the type and size of the target. Another question from Simon Blomquist. Can you say something about the regulatory environment for you in Germany? As we also mentioned in the speak, that we decided seven years ago to focus on operators where we knew they had a long-term view on the German market, also in terms of a regulated German market. We have actually seen growth year on year in the German market for Q4 and feel that we are in a very strong position in Germany. Our outlook for Germany is very positive. The full regulation will come into place in July. How that's short term affecting we obviously don't know for sure, but we are not too concerned about it.
We feel that we have a very strong position where we will benefit a lot from the big increase in demand from new operators entering this highly attractive regulated market. In general, of course goes without saying that Germany is a large market, but it's also very attractive player values that we see in the German market. All in all, it's a market where we're really bullish for the future. Then a question from Kalle Larsson. "How well-positioned are your assets in Brazil relating to the upcoming regulation?" Brazil is another market where we now for some years have been very active and focused, and we are in a strong position, we believe. It's also a market where M&A is something we consider. We monitor the development and regulation closely. It's a priority market for us, that we can say.
Next question, also from Kalle Larsson. Could you elaborate on the trend you see in acquisition multiples? Again, it of course is different depending on whether we are looking at U.S. targets or European targets. Size plays a pretty big role in that. On a general note, we don't feel that prices are going up a lot. In several cases, it's in line with what we've done historically. U.S. is with higher multiples than the European targets. There's no doubt about that.
I think the next question reads from [Paulis Cipriani]: Can you please elaborate a bit more on the organic growth guided in paid media and publishing? 20% and 25% respectively for 2021, whereas the implied growth rate is more than 80% for 2021 that exclude M&A. I should add that more than 80% is the total growth. The more than 80% include the already completed acquisitions that only had partial effect in 2020. They will have full year effect on the total growth for 2021, and that is the acquisition of HLTV in March, and also the Atemi Group that came into effect from October 1st. Therefore, the total growth is so high, both a combination of the organic growth that is expected and also the full year effect of the already completed acquisitions. When we say excluding M&A, it's excluding new M&A. I hope that clarifies.
The next question comes from [Newham Iftar]: Good morning. Could you please go into more detail and comment on the level of organic growth in Q4, which is very high, and maybe the level of organic growth for paid media and publishing. I can at least start with commenting on the organic growth in Q4. It was indeed very strong. It was, as Jesper also stated in his speech, across many markets. We saw very strong performance in the U.S. that continued into January. Far, we saw very strong performance in the markets like Germany and also South America was a driver. In general, it was a very active sports quarter also with high activity in the underlying wagering. Yeah, it was basically across the board with a few outliers I mentioned in positives.
Yeah, then a slightly higher margin than the historical average, which of course benefits us. That being said, we just saw a very high activity from the existing betting customers as well as a good new intake of customers. Then it seems to be the final question from Massimiliano Marchisio: Regarding M&A, as Better Collective grows, M&A targets should follow the same trajectory. How are you positioned on executing on larger M&A deals? I think we are well-positioned. We have a strong balance sheet. We have access to capital on attractive terms in general, we definitely feel that we are in a strong position and also would be able to execute larger M&As than we have done historically. That was the last question.
Yeah, I think that was the last question, and just from our side, at least a few participants have experienced some issues with the sound. Just apologize for that. I hope you managed to get something out of the presentation anyway. If not, then you are always welcome to contact us directly. Thanks.
Yes. Thank you very much for dialing in and listening, and thanks a lot for the questions. Have a great day. Bye.