PRESS RELEASE - Apr 13 - Russmedia Equity Partners acquires a minority stake in white label dating company ICONY. Schöne Töchter remains the majority owner. Russmedia Equity Partners' portfolio currently comprises 24 platforms in six EU countries. ICONY, based in Reutlingen (Germany), offers partners the opportunity to operate a dating platform under their own brand and domain.
See full article at Russmedia Equity Partners website
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PITCHBOOK - Mar 17 - Soul, a Chinese dating app provider, is reportedly in talks with bankers about a deal to go public in the US at a valuation of $1B. Soul seeks to raise $200M in its IPO. Soul has previously raised $60M from investors including DST Global, Genesis Capital and 5Y Capital.
See full article at Pitchbook
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GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Mar 15 - Lolly is the brainchild of Babson College senior Marc Baghadjian and NYU graduate, Sacha Schermerhorn. Lolly was born out of their frustration with dating apps. Lolly allows users to showcase their personality through videos and find people based on common interests. Lolly has attracted the attention of John Sculley (former CEO of Apple), Ron Conway's SV Angel, John Pleasants (former President of IAC), Blair Shane (former CMO of Sequoia Capital), Jane Metcalfe (co-founder of WIRED), Scott Eagle (former CMO of E-Harmony), Mitch Lowe (Founding Executive at Netflix), among others. In keeping with its focus on the Gen Z experience, Lolly is also currently working with investor California Crescent Fund, a student-run venture fund located in Southern California, to assist in community building and growth.
See full article at Globe Newswire
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OPW - Mar 12 - Dave Heysen and Daniel Haigh have done a company buyback of RSVP, which is the hallmark dating brand in Australia. Dave and Daniel are the majority shareholders now. The company is no longer owned by Nine (who bought Fairfax). Watch OPW.news for more information and an expanded post next week.
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TECH CRUNCH - Feb 22 - Snack, founded by Kimberly Kaplan, looks to merge the popularity and format of TikTok with the dating world. Kaplan hails from Plenty of Fish, where she was one of the earliest employees. She led product, marketing and revenue and was on the executive team that eventually sold PoF to Match Group for $575M in 2015. Snack is a video-first dating app that asks users to create a video and post it to a feed. Other users can scroll through a feed rather than swipe right or left on individual profiles, and when someone likes a video, it opens up the ability to comment. Once two users have liked each others' videos, DMs are open. Kaplan said that Snack is also working on video editing features similar to that of TikTok to let people get super creative with their profiles. There are 10 people on the Snack team.
by Jordan Crook
See full article at Tech Crunch
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THE HINDU BUSINESS LINE - Feb 16 - Bengaluru-based dating app Aisle has raised an undisclosed amount in pre-Series A funding from Hurun India Founder and Managing Director Anas Rahman Junaid and seed funding firm Konglo Ventures' founder Vinod Jose. Aisle will use the proceeds to foray into Tier-II markets across the country and expand in other countries with non-residential Indian presence. Aisle connects people of Indian-origin from around the world, who are looking for serious relationships and competes with Tinder and Bumble among others. Aisle had raised a previous funding earlier on February 14, 2017.
See full article at The Hindu Business Line
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TECH CRUNCH - Feb 15 - Jigsaw, an "anti-superficial" dating app, scored £2.7M ($3.7M) in seed funding to put toward U.S. expansion. The round is led by a lead generation company for online dating companies, called The Relationship Corp., with backing from angel investors in the U.S. and U.K. primarily in the tech sector. The app puts a digital jigsaw over the faces of users, with pieces removed gradually the more they interact - and the full face only revealed after a pre-set amount of in-app engagement. The app launched in London in 2019; and opened up to the U.S. in November last year. Jigsaw has ~150K+ registered users across those two markets at this point, with 50K in the U.S.
by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch
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PR NEWSWIRE - Feb 10 - Match Group is acquiring Hyperconnect for $1.725B in cash and stock. The transaction is expected to close in Q2 2021 pending customary regulatory approvals. Hyperconnect is a leading social discovery and video technology company based in Seoul, South Korea that operates Azar and Hakuna Live. Azar is the highest grossing 1-on-1 live video and audio chat app globally, allowing users to connect with others from around the world, instantly translating voice and text. Since launch in 2014, Azar has tallied 540M downloads. Hakuna Live is an interactive, social live streaming app that enables group video and audio broadcasts with various features including virtual gifting, AR powered avatars, profile enhancements, and communities built around shared interests. Since launch in 2019, Hakuna Live has been downloaded ~23M times with strong momentum in South Korea and Japan. Hyperconnect is profitable and generated ~$200M in revenue in 2020, a 50% increase from 2019.
See full article at PR Newswire
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LINKEDIN - Feb 4 - Dua is a dating and networking app for Albanians and diaspora. Dua's CEO and founder Valon Asani has announced that his startup raised an extended seed round of €150K at €10M valuation. The app has been downloaded 340K times and claims 145K users with 12% monthly growth.
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PR NEWSWIRE - Feb 3 - Dating app Clover has closed a growth capital financing of $12M consisting of growth debt from Espresso Capital, and a structured equity investment from an existing investor. In fiscal 2020, Clover generated $19M in revenue from 900K paid subscriptions. Clover plans to use the new funds to accelerate its rapid growth. The app offers a wide range of settings, filters, messaging, and video options. LIVE, the new video streaming service, allows users to watch live streams, start their own stream, chat, and send and receive gifts.
See full article at PR Newswire
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