Mamba – Online Personals Watch

Forbes Investigation Into Badoo’s Corporate Culture

Posted on July 9, 2019

FORBES – July 7 – Andrey Andreev's biggest asset is Badoo, a European- and Latin American-focused dating app that, with 60M users, stands as one of the world's largest. His buzziest, however, is Bumble, the dating app focused on empowering women. Andrey launched his first dating company – Mamba – in 2004. It was a bare-bones desktop dating site for Russian users. Finam Holdings invested $20M in Mamba for a 90% stake; Andreev sold the rest to Finam in 2006 for an undisclosed amount. Building off the success of Mamba, Andreev launched Badoo in 2006. In 2010, Badoo launched its iPhone mobile app. The company went from 20M user sign-ups to 100M in four months, mostly in Europe and Latin America, and notched $200M in revenue. (Forbes estimates that last year Badoo had a bit over $300M in revenue.) Simultaneous with this growth, Badoo began earning a reputation for wild parties. More concerning, several former employees say office behavior was hostile and discriminatory toward women. Andreev maintains that he is a collaborator and unifier, not racist or sexist as others allege. Wolfe Herd, who spent Bumble's formative period walking around London with Andreev for days, says she has never witnessed toxic behavior in the Badoo headquarters. And she stands firmly behind Andreev. "What I've seen firsthand from Andrey is creative and motivating behavior. Andrey has never been anything but kind and respectful to me."

by Angel Au-Yeung
See full article at Forbes

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Russian Authorities Ask Tinder to Hand Over User Data

Posted on June 4, 2019

INDEPENDENT.CO.UK – June 3 – On Monday, authorities confirmed that Tinder had been reclassified as an "information provider". Under Russia's controversial anti-terrorism legislation, that means that the tech company will now be required to store and hand over user data: encryption passwords, geolocation details, photo and video content. While Tinder currently encrypts messages, the company's own terms state that user data can be handed over on request from security services. Russia's security services want to make that process automatic. Tinder has yet to comment on the change, but may be blocked if it does not comply with the request. Two of the country's most popular sites – Mamba and Wamba – were added to the state information register in 2014. Badoo followed three years later.

by Oliver Carroll
See full article at Independent.co.uk

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IDEA WOW + IDEA SUMMIT, in Chennai, India

Posted on April 9, 2019

OPW – Apr 9 – The Internet Dating Excellence Association World Officers Weekend happened over the weekend, and the IDEA SUMMIT happened Monday. Here’s video summaries of our adventures in Chennai.

Day 1

Day 2

IDEA SUMMIT was a closed door event. It was a very full day of learning and sharing. 14 presentations were made by the CEO/Founder of Matrimony, CEO of Mamba, Chief Mobile Officer of Matrimony, CEO/Founder of Lunch Actually, CMO of Woo, CEO/Founder of Agape Match, CEO of LoveMe, MD of Insparx, Owner of SuccessfulMatch, Owner of Hubpeople, Co-founder of LoveMe, MD of Mamba, and CEO of BetterHalf.ai.

You can see the full information and line up here. Now we’re working on the next event.

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Andrey Andreev Is A Real Life Cupid With Five Dating Apps To His Name

Posted on August 28, 2018

CELEBRITY NET WORTH – Aug 27 – Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev is the king of dating apps. He's the man behind five successful online dating apps – Badoo, Chappy, Huggle, Mamba and Bumble. He was born Andrey Ogandzhantyants in Moscow but changed his name to his mother's maiden name because it was easier to spell. He's always been passionate about technology. He briefly attended the University of Moscow but dropped out at age 18 to move to Spain. In 1995, he founded Virus, an e-commerce site that sold computers and accessories to internet users in Russia. In 1997, he sold it for a few hundred thousand dollars. In 1999, he founded SpyLog, which was software that tracked visitors to websites. It was basically Google Analytics before that lunched in 2005. Andreev left SpyLog in December 2001. In 2002, he built Begun, a contextual ads company. Google almost bought Begun in 2008 for $140M but the deal never went through. Begun still exists, but Andreev left in early 2004. Andreev founded Badoo in Spain in 2006 and launched it in 2009. The company's headquarters are in London and there is a Moscow office. Badoo employs 300 people. Andreev will not disclose Badoo's revenue but said that Match Group is a good comparison for Badoo.

by Amy Lamare
See full article at Celebrity Net Worth

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Creator of Mamba And Badoo Makes Forbes (Russia) Richest List

Posted on March 6, 2018

FORBES RUSSIA – Mar 6 – The founder of Mamba and Badoo, Andrey Andreev enters the global Forbes richest list with a fortune of $1.5B. Andrey Andreev (43) is not at all like a billionaire. "Such an eclectic, quirky, creative, that the industry needs very much. I hope he does not sell his company in the near future," says Brooks, senior consultant at Courtland Brooks. He recalls the first meeting with Andreev: the businessman appeared in his white T-shirt, asked the necessary questions and left without losing a minute. But on another occasion, after going to Brooks for a meeting of heads of dating Internet services, Andreev spent half a night in the kitchen, preparing his famous soup, which was served in a Michelin star London restaurant.

In 1999 Andreev launched the web analytics service SpyLog, and in 2002, the contextual ad service "Begun". Andreev created the Russian dating service "Mamba" a year later. The service made its first revenues through SMS. In Oct. 2005, with 4.5M members, Finam bought it for $20M, enough to launch Badoo in 2006, a service combining the dating and social networking. At the end of 2017 there were 370M members.

Andreev lived for many years in Spain, and his knowledge of the Spanish mentality helped him promote Badoo in Europe and Latin America. But to conquer more competitive markets in the US and English-speaking countries, this was not enough. In order to enter the American market, Andreev bought Hot Or Not in 2014. He then introduced swiping.

He now launches new companies only if there's a manager able to deal with operations, while he deals with the financing, product support and monetization. Andreev helped Huggle in exchange for a stake, and also in Chappy.

Bumble launched Dec. 2014 and had 100k downloads the first month. The idea of a dating service where women take the initiative turned out to be a godsend for the American market. He invested $10M for a 78.21% stake. Herd became CEO and took a 20% stake. $100M revenue is expected in 2017, and double this year.

"The service is significantly different from Badoo. Guys will go where there are a lot of girls, and are attracted to proactive girls who think in a modern way and are ready to take the first step," explains Mark Brooks about the secret of Bumble's success. Tinder has 50M active users and worth is estimated at $3B. Bumble has 23M users. This year, Herd refused to sell it for $450M to Match Group. In the autumn Match reportedly upped its offer to over $1B. In the past, Andreev was offered to sell Badoo for several hundred million dollars, says Mark Brooks, and now the company, "But it seems to me that Andreev is not ready to retire," the expert concludes.

by Alexandr Baulin & Clare O'Connor
See full article at Forbes

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Summarized by the IDEA team

Researchers Say It Is Easy To Hack Tinder, OkCupid, And Others

Posted on October 26, 2017

GIZMODO – Oct 25 – Using exploits ranging from simple to complex, researchers at the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab say they could access users' location data, their real names and login info, their message history, and even see which profiles they've viewed. They tested Tinder, Bumble, OKCupid, Badoo, Mamba, Zoosk, Happn, WeChat and Paktor. Most apps have minimal HTTPS encryption, making it easy to access user data. The researchers say they have already sent their findings to the respective apps' developers.

by Sidney Fussell
See full articl at Gizmondo

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Meet Andrey Andreev, The Man Behind Badoo

Posted on October 24, 2017

THE TIMES – Oct 21 – Badoo is available in 190 countries and has 7x more users than Tinder. He's worth ~£700M and says the swipe was actually invented by him. He always wears a white T-shirt and jeans, and does not, as a rule, give interviews. "There have been lots of stories surrounding me. I'm not mysterious. I just don't like to have a big public profile." Andreev launched Badoo in 2009. "Swipes, by the way, were invented by us at the very beginning," he says. "Other apps took it. Tinder made it their number one feature. But we had it for ages." Andreev studied management at university in Moscow, but dropped out and joined his family in Spain. In the late Nineties, he founded the first of a series of start-ups and in 2003 became a millionaire after selling a majority share in an online advertising service Begun. It was around this time he turned his attention to dating. So in 2004 he created a service called Mamba. To this day, Mamba remains the most popular dating service in Russia. But after 18 months, Andreev again sold his stake in Mamba – a deal that will have made him many more millions – and moved on to his next project.

See full article at The Times

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Dating App Mamba Aims To Boost Russian Voter Turnout

Posted on August 22, 2017

BBC.COM – Mamba is attempting to boost voter turnout in the upcoming elections by finding users an election "date". The app has introduced a feature called "Voting Together" for users to find an election "date". Users swipe through pictures of fellow users, and answer questions such as: "Would you go to vote with her (him)?" If two users say "yes", they receive a message saying, "It looks like we like each other. We can go to vote together on 10 September."

See full article at BBC

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Mamba Acquired Premium Dating Site Teamo

Posted on November 2, 2015

IZVESTIA – Nov 2 – Mamba has acquired 100% of Russian dating site Teamo.ru. The amount was not disclosed but experts estimate it at $25-40M.

by Vladimir Zykov
See full article at Izvestia

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Mail.ru To Sell Stake In Mamba

Posted on January 14, 2015

TELECOMPAPER – Jan 13 - Mail.ru owns a 31.19% stake in the dating service, and Russian company Finam owns the rest and is considered a potential buyer. Experts estimate Mamba is worth RUB 4-5 billion.