Internet Dating Investments

Spark Networks to Acquire Zoosk

PR NEWSWIRE - Mar 22 - Spark Networks today announced its entry into a definitive agreement to acquire Zoosk. With the addition of Zoosk, Spark will more than double in size and the combined business will be considerably more valuable than the two stand-alone entities. In 2020, Spark expects Adjusted EBITDA to exceed $50M. Approximately two-thirds of the combined company's revenue will be generated in North America. Spark will acquire 100% of Zoosk's shares with a combination of cash and stock valuing the company at ~$255M based on the closing price of Spark Networks stock on March 20, 2019. The transaction is expected to close early in Q3 2019.

See full article at PR Newswire

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The Meet Group Q4 Results, Acquires Gay App Growlr for $11.8M

BUSINESSWIRE - Mar 6 - For Q4 2018 revenue was $52.5M, up 31% YOY. GAAP net income was $4.3M, compared to a net loss of $68.1M the prior year Q4. The prior year Q4 included a non-cash asset impairment charge of $56.4M and a deferred tax charge of $7.7M. Adjusted EBITDA was $10.6M, compared to $10.5M in the prior Q4. In 2018 revenue was $178.6M, up from $123.8M in 2017. "In addition to reporting a strong quarter, I'm excited to announce the acquisition of Growlr, which provides a meaningful step into the large same-sex dating market and expands the base of users to whom we can deliver our live video product," said Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group. "Video transformed our business in 2018," continued Cook. "Our goal is to build the best place to meet new people through video. We increased the average monetization per daily active video user to 18c, up from 14c in the Q3, 2018." The Meet Group acquired Growlr for $11.8M, using $4.8M in cash and $7M from its existing line of credit, plus an earnout of $2M to be paid in annual $1M installments over the next two years if certain revenue metrics are achieved in each year. The Growlr app has ~200K global DAU, who exchange millions of messages each day.

See full article at The Meet Group website

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Relationship A.I. Seeks Seed Funding

IDI - Mar 4 - Relationship A.I. is a subscription app which helps improve the way daters make relationship decisions. It was a finalist for the iDate Awards, "Best New Technology in Dating 2019." Dating app users are managing multiple dating apps at a time and investing many hours a week maintaining their accounts. Relationship A.I. helps dating app users track and process their love life from the first message through to a long-term relationship. It can compliment dating app platforms that are seeking to create greater LTV. They're in an active seed round. Contact the CEO Karinna Karsten directly to learn more at info@relationship-ai.com.

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Interview With the CEO of Rumpur, an Ethic Gay Dating Service

OPW INTERVIEW - Feb 18 - Rumpur is billed as the first dating app for ethic gay men, a relationship focused service 'without the restraints of discrimination based on race.' Here's what the CEO/Founder Garfield Wright had to say about the app.

Why Rumpur?
At Rumpur we recognize that ethnic gay men are faced with racism, discrimination and bigotry on many dating apps and websites. These men are left feeling rejected and debased as human beings. Rumpur was created to level the online dating field for ethnic gay men.

What's your USP
Rumpur is the first American based gay dating app to offer live video chat where users can authenticate each other and talk in real time.

How many daily active users do you have at this stage?
As of this writing, we have a total of 11,904 users. 7953 of such are active users and 5,340 are daily active users.

What funding have you had to date?
To date we haven't sought any funding because we wanted to gain traction before we approach any investors. Now we are gaining traction and growing our user base. We believe now is the right time to seek funding.

What are you plans for the app?
Our plan for the app is to make it the number one app for ethnic gay people in the LGBTQ community throughout the world. Although we started out targeting ethnic gay men we will eventually open up our app to accommodate the entire LGBTQ community such as lesbians, non binaries, etc.

Whats next?
We are gaining traction every day with new users entering our platform. However, we lack the necessary funding to drive growth. We are seeking a seed round in financing to take Rumpur to the next level. The funding will be used to hire a product manager, hire a marketing expert, increase our advertising budget and optimize our app store presence.

What kind of money are you looking for ideally?
We are seeking a seed round of $400,000 to $500,000 for 10% of our company. We understand our target audience and our market and are a very resilient team that can weather the ups and downs of running a startup.

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Match Group Fully Acquires Hinge

TECH CRUNCH - Feb 7 - Last year, Match Group acquired a 51% stake in Hinge. The company has now confirmed that it fully bought out Hinge in the past quarter, and today owns 100%. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Match believes Hinge can offer an alternative to those who aren't interested in using casual apps, like Tinder. As Match explained in November, it plans to double-down on marketing that focuses on Tinder's more casual nature and use by young singles, while positioning Hinge as the alternative for those looking for serious relationships. The company said it would also increase its investment in Hinge going forward, in order to grow its user base. "Hinge downloads are now 2.5 times more than the next largest app, and 40% of Bumble downloads," said Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg.

by Sarah Perez
See full article at Tech Crunch

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PeerStream Is Selling Its Dating Assets to Focus on LiveStreaming and Blockchain Initiatives

GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Feb 4 - PeerStream has completed a sale of its non-core dating assets to The Dating Company LLC, a private U.S.-based company. The dating assets consist principally of the FirstMet dating service, which was founded in 2007. Alex Harrington, CEO of PeerStream, commented: "as we shifted our corporate strategy it became clear that the dating assets were non-core and suffered from lack of management attention, resulting in underperformance in 2018, including a significant revenue decline and negative cash flow."

See full article at Globe Newswire

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Malaysian Dating App Sugarbook.com Raises Seed Capital

DEALSTREET ASIA - Feb 4 - Malaysia-based "Sugar Daddy" dating app Sugarbook.com has raised a six-digit seed round from an angel investor. The angel investor comes from an investment banking background from a Hong Kong VC firm. According to Sugarbook, the proceeds will be used to scale and develop its product and infrastructure. Founded in 2017, Sugarbook has 300K members across 60 countries including Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and the US. The company generates revenue from monthly subscriptions and packages for sugar babies and daddies.

by Kristie Neo
See full article at Dealstreet Asia

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SC Holdings Acquires 5% of UK Dating Company NowDating

GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Jan 23 - SC Holdings Corp., based in Hong Kong, has acquired 5% of NowDating Ltd., a UK company which developed a dating app "Now" Dating. Tan Yuen, SC Holding's CEO, received confidence votes internally to make acquisitions of companies with high growth potential irrespective of industry.

See full article at Nasdaq

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Dating App JigTalk Raises $1M

BQ - Jan 14 - JigTalk, the dating app that encourages online daters to talk more, has officially closed its seed round of $1M. The round was led by Apadmi Ventures and includes significant backing from high profile London, New York and Manchester-based angel investors. In addition to growing its team to 10 full-time staff, the company has also welcomed a new Chairman, Christopher Edmonds. Edmonds is the ex-global MD of technology for JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley. Over the course of the last 2 years, JigTalk has beta tested the app in the north of England and built a team ready to launch its app UK-wide, starting in London in Jan 2019.

by Ashleigh Smith
See full article at BQ

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Brand Capital Invests in Blockchain-powered App 'Ponder' To Launch in India

INDIANWEB2.COM - Dec 30 - Brand Capital, the strategic investment arm of India's largest media conglomerate the Times Group, has acquired a stake in Ponder, a blockchain-based recommendations platform. Founded in 2017 by Manshu Agarwal and Chris Imani, Ponder is a game-like mobile app to play matchmaker where users win money for making successful matches. With a drag and drop photos of friends or other singles that one think would be a good match, users play a matchmakers if singles like each other the user win $10, if they marry they get $1K. The app has been downloaded over 120K times and the startup is now building another referral app for recruitment purposes.

See full article at Indianweb2.com

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