Internet Dating Investments

Newborn Town to Acquire BlueCity

PR NEWSWIRE - Newborn Town has signed an agreement with Spriver to acquire Chizicheng Strategy Investment, a subsidiary of Spriver. This acquisition will make Newborn Town the controlling shareholder of BlueCity, which is owned by Chizicheng Strategy Investment. Upon completion of the acquisition, Newborn Town will consolidate the financial statements of BlueCity into its own financial statements. BlueCity is a leading player in the LGBTQ social vertical, with its flagship Blued app as the second-largest LGBTQ platform globally in terms of active users while holding the leading position in terms of users in several Asian countries and regions. Newborn Town is a company with diversified social networking services based in Hong Kong, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The company was founded in 2013 and provides various social networking services such as live streaming, interactive entertainment, and audio services. Newborn Town has a global footprint and operates in key markets, including Japan, Korea, North America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

See full article at PR Newswire

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Online Dating (Investors) Summit, in New York

OPW - New Street Research, assisted by Courtland Brooks, is organizing the Online Dating (Investors) Summit in New York tomorrow, Tuesday 14th March. 40-50 institutional and large-scale public company investors will be in attendance, along with a diverse group of public and private Internet dating company CEOs.

The CEO of Match Group, Bernard Kim, along with the COO of Tinder, Faye Iosotaluno, and CPO of Tinder, Mark Van Ryswyk will speak. The CEO of Grindr George Arison and CFO of Grindr Vanna Krantz will also be speaking.

Mark Brooks of Courtland Brooks (and OPW.news), will be interviewing a panel of private company CEOs, namely Joel Simkhai, the Founder of Grindr, and now CEO of Motto. Also Carsten Boeltz, the CEO of Online Dating Group, and Paul Rider, the CEO of SALT. Mark will then interview the CEO of happn, Karima Ben Abdelmalek.

This is a completely unique event and opportunity for large investors to meet and mingle with the CXOs of both the large online dating public companies and private dating companies to get a better sense of the challenges and opportunities for the dating industry.

Investors who are interested in joining future niche industry meetings and learning from New Street Research's independent analysis, please inquire with New Street Research.

Indian Matchmaking Platform Betterhalf Raises $8.5M

BUSINESS TODAY - Homegrown matrimony app Betterhalf (earlier known a Betterhalf.ai) has raised $8.5M in a Series A round led by FinSight Ventures (which had earlier invested in Bumble), Instagram Co-founder Mike Krieger, Dropbox Co-founder Arash Ferdowsi, and other marquee investors. Founded in 2017, Betterhalf claims to have grown its revenues 2x in six months and has hit $2.5M in annual revenue with 1M MAU. Before this, in May 2021, Betterhalf had raised $3M in a Pre-Series A round led by Y Combinator, S2 Capital, Quiet Capital, and angel investors like Kunal Shah (CRED Founder).

by Sohini Mitter
See full article at Business Today

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Single Parent Dating App Playdate Raises £250k

UKTN - Playdate, a UK-based dating app for single parents, has raised £250K in its first external funding round after bootstrapping the business since its launch in 2021. Research from the company found that there are as many as 2.9M single parents in the UK, suggesting a potentially significant market for the app. The investment round came from the VC firm Ankh Impact Ventures, along with a series of angel investors.

by Oscar Hornstein
See full article at UKTN

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Match Group to Invest in Indian Matrimonial Site Shaadi

ECONOMIC TIMES - Match Group is in advanced discussions with Shaadi.com for a strategic investment in the Indian company. The exact financial terms and arrangement are yet to be ascertained. Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal didn't respond to queries. Match Group said that it does not comment on speculation. In an interview to a business daily in Sep last year, Mittal had said the company was planning to go public in the next fiscal year. Mittal is the founder and CEO of People Group, which runs the matchmaking site.

by Anumeha Chaturvedi
See full article at Economic Times

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Tawkify Acquires S'More

TECH CRUNCH - Matchmaking service provider Tawkify has acquired S'More, an "anti-superficial" dating app that had experimented with blurred profile photos and blurred video chats in an attempt to get people to get to know one another without the focus on physical appearance. With the acquisition, S'More is sunsetting its app, and founder Adam Cohen Aslatei will instead join the Tawkify team to lead the launch of its first-ever mobile product. Deal terms were not disclosed, but S'More had raised $3.2M in seed funding, according to Crunchbase. Set to launch in mid-2023, Tawkify's new app will offer users access to its matchmaking service, new relationship wellness services, as well as "multimedia features, sharable and exclusive content," said Cohen Aslatei. As of the time of the acquisition, S'More claimed to have ~450K users.

by Lauren Forristal
See full article at Tech Crunch

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Kindred Acquihires Dating App Mango, Appoints Founder as CTO

BUSINESSWIRE - Kindred, a members-only home-swapping network, acquihired dating app Mango and its founder, Bryan Li. Li has joined Kindred as Chief Technology Officer. Founded in 2021, Mango built AI-powered matchmaking to connect users efficiently and effectively. The acquisition is poised to expand Kindred's matching capabilities for home swaps with the app's proprietary technology and Li's expertise.

See full article at Businesswire

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Queer Spaces Raised $1M Through Crowdfunding

QUEER SPACES - Four months after its incorporation, Queer Spaces, incubated and spun out of Hornet, has closed its crowdfunding campaign. ~100 investors invested $1M in the company to create safe digital spaces for queer people. Among Spaces' high-profile tech industry investors are individuals including Mark Suster (Upfront), Sean Rad (Tinder), Tim Howes (Netscape), Max Burger (APAX), Niklas Lindstrom (Skout, Meet Group, UnitQ) and Sam Altman (YC, OpenAI). The investment will go towards accelerating the app's growth, building an in-demand Android version by year’s end, and kicking off a marketing spend to follow the app's launch in March of this year.

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Gaming YouTubers Invest in Dating App FITFCK

BUSINESS CLOUD - FITFCK, a dating app for gym enthusiasts, has won backing from Sam Harry and Martin Wood, who go under the monikers Chaotic and SXVXN. The two gaming creators boast a combined following of ~3M subscribers and have amassed ~1B views on YouTube. FITFCK's YouTube channel launched in Nov and will soon boast content relating to dating, training and its journey as a fitness startup brand. OnlyFans founder Tim Stokely recently invested in the company at a valuation of ~£3M.

See full article at Business Cloud

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Dating App Breeze Raises €1.3M

LINKEDIN - Breeze is a new dating app based in the Netherlands. The app, which encourages offline dates, has recently raised €1.3M. Breeze's users cannot chat but can immediately plan a date with their matches via the app.

See full article at LinkedIn

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