Internet Dating Investments

German Dating App, LemonSwan, Raised a 7-Digit Round

GRUENDER - July 29 - There are currently ~17M single people in Germany. The online dating revenue in the country will be reach ~212M euros in 2020. The market is dominated by large providers such as Parship or Elitepartner, who aggressively advertise on TV and at S-Bahn stations. So are the large pieces of the cake already distributed? Arne Kahlke and Paul Uhlig don't believe that. The two are founders of dating app Lemon Swan. The app, which claims 250K users, launched 3 years ago. Kahlke has a lot of experience in connecting people. He not only built up Parship's marketing, but also founded ElitePartner in 2004 and sold the company to ProSiebenSat1. Lemon Swan's matching process is similar to that of ElitePartner and Parship - the app works with a psychological personality test and a matching algorithm - but so-called bouncers are also used to check users identity. After a capital injection in January 2019, the start-up has now received fresh capital in the seven-figure range. With the money, LemonSwan wants to become profitable in the German-speaking region in the Q1 2021, and to expand internationally.

by Marie-Charlotte Maas
See full article at Gruender

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Blued Gay Dating App Plans to Raise $85M in US IPO

STAR OBSERVER - July 7 - Last week, Chines gay dating app Blued revealed that it plans to raise ~$85M in an IPO of American Depositary Shares (ADS). The IPO scheduled to hit the market on Wednesday July 8 is planning to sell 5.3M ADS at a price of $15-$17 per ADS. The app claims ~49M registered users. For comparison, Grindr has ~27M users and Tinder ~57M users around the world. Blued said it was planning to use the IPO proceeds for geographic expansion, investment in technology and development, AI and big data capacity.

by Shibu Thomas
See full article at Star Observer

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Video Matchmaking App Yidui Completes Series B Financing Led by Sky9 Capital

GLOBE NEWSWIRE - June 26 - Yidui, the video matchmaking platform in China, has completed a Series B round of financing led by Sky9 Capital and Xiaomi. Launched in 2018, the company has ~40M users and has raised $100M to date. Yidui provides an innovative dating experience, where the date is moderated by a third person - a "matchmaker" - who facilitates the conversation. The date is live-streamed and the audience can comment and live-chat with the matchmaker. Yidui's 10M matchmakers arrange 40M dates a month. Sky9 Capital is an early-stage focused venture capital firm investing in internet, enterprise and deep-tech sectors in China.

See full article at Globe Newswire

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Blued Gay Dating App Plans Nasdaq IPO

REUTERS - June 16 - BlueCity Holdings, owner of China's biggest dating app for gay men, aims to raise $50M from an IPO of American depositary shares (ADSs). The offer price for each ADS is yet to be finalised, and it will be traded on the Nasdaq global market under the symbol "BLCT". Founded in 2011, BlueCity says it has 49M registered users in ~210 countries. It added that it has 6M monthly active users, 49% of them from outside China.

by Colin Qian & Meg Shen
See full article at Reuters

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Kippo Raises $2M for a Dating App for Gamers

VENTURE BEAT - May 28 - Kippo has raised $2M for a dating app for gamers who want to find like-minded companions. Primer Sazze Partners led the round, with participation from Tinder executives and partners at Eaton Workshop, NextGen Venture, and IHeartComix. The capital will primarily be used to expand the interactive features on the app. The name for the company comes from a Korean word, and it's a twist on "happiness". The grand vision is to create a platform for everybody, a platform that is a gamified experience for people to meet new people". Gamers identify what games they like and include a lot of photos in their profiles. They also connect using in-game names, rather than phone numbers. 93% of Kippo users go on a virtual date and play video games together before meeting in-person. The company was founded in 2019 by David Park, Cheeyoon Lee, and Sean Suyeda.

by Dean Takahashi
See full article at Venture Beat

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Paktor Acquired by Singapore Advisory Firm Kollective Ventures

TECH IN ASIA - May 21 - Singapore-based advisory firm Kollective Ventures has acquired dating and networking app operator Paktor Group from Taiwan's M17 Entertainment. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Paktor Group was formed in 2013 by M17's current CEO Joseph Phua. It owns a number of dating assets, including its namesake app that has operations in Taiwan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. It also runs Goodnight, an app that enables voice conversations between strangers. Paktor was merged with livestreaming company 17 Media in April 2017 to form M17.

by Miguel Cordon
See full article at Tech In Asia

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Private Equity Outfit KKR Has Acquired 5.2% Stake in ProSiebenSat.1

TBI - May 12 - KKR has decided to invest in the broadcaster because it believes that the market is undervaluing the company. The investment marks the second time around with ProSiebenSat.1 for KKR. KKR's move comes six weeks after former CEO Max Conze left ProSiebenSat.1, following two years in the job. The former Dyson exec saw the company's share price tumble, while execs departed amid a strategy that included investing $500M in dating app developer The Meet Group. The company has now outlined new plans to turn away from e-commerce, with an eye on selling its NuCom arm (parent of Parship, ElitePartner, eharmony) and concentrating purely on entertainment.

by Stuart Thomson
See full article at TBI

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Match Is Offering $500 Million in Bonds That Mature in 2028

MARKETWATCH - May 12 - Match Group is offering $500M in senior notes that mature in 2028 in a private offering. Proceeds will be used to redeem the company's 6.375% senior notes due 2024 and for general corporate purposes.

by Ciara Linnane
See full article at MarketWatch

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Live Streaming Platform M17 Raises $26.5M in Series D Round

DEALSTREET ASIA - May 11 - M17 Entertainment has landed $26.5M in a Series D funding round led by the Temasek-backed Vertex Growth Fund. The company will focus on deepening its presence in Japan and the rest of developed Asia, while planning expansion into the US and new markets such as the Middle East. M17 said it has the largest live streaming platform in developed Asia, with ~60% market share by revenue in Japan and Taiwan. M17’s estimated annual revenue is $180M. In 2018, M17 raised $25M. The company also raised a $40M Series A round in 2017. M17 was formed in April 2017 after the merger of Singapore-based Paktor Group and Taiwan-based 17 Media, a regional live streaming company. The company's main dating apps are Paktor and Goodnight. M17 had planned to list its Paktor dating and networking app on the New York Stock Exchange in a $115M IPO in 2018, but it withdrew the application after the IPO roadshow only raised $60M.

by Leslie Shaffer
See full article at DealStreet Asia

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Sam Altman Backs 'Video-First' Dating App Curtn

TECH CRUNCH - May 5 - A new dating app advised by Grindr founder Joel Simkhai and former YC chief Sam Altman is aiming to capitalize on the skyrocketing popularity of video chat. The new app, called Curtn, is pushing video as its differentiating factor, encouraging users to create short videos for their dating profiles and aiming to move conversations to video chat after users match. CEO Brenden Strauss and his co-founder and CTO, Benjamin Honig have some noteworthy advisors. For one, Strauss' boyfriend Joel Simkhai is the co-founder of Grindr and was one of his biggest inspirations for building out the app. Former YC president and current OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is also serving as an advisor and is one of the startup's first investors. The team has raised ~$425K pre-seed round of investment to get the app ready to share with the world.

by Lucas Matney
See full article at Tech Crunch

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