BUZZFEED - May 22 - The League, which promotes exclusivity and has been described as "Tinder for elitists," asks its top members to sign a contract where they have to promise not to use any other dating apps. Members who sign the contract, which appears to operate on the honor system, are promised benefits like seeing the highest-performing profiles first, getting the first shot at "new talent," and getting 10 VIP invites for people to cut the waitlist.
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The League Asks Members To Sign A Contract Not To Use Other Dating Apps
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A Chinese Policeman Builds The World's Top Gay Dating App - Blued
FORBES - May 25 - Ma Baoli, who goes by the alias Geng Le, had been a policeman in the northern Hebei province for almost 20 years. He was forced to quit the job in 2012, when people found out he had secretly moderated Danlan, a gay website, at night. China has no anti- discrimination law in place, meaning a lot of people, especially those working for government, choose to hide their sexual orientation. Ma Baoli started Blued, a dating app similar to Grindr. Now Blued boasts ~20M users, including ~6M abroad. Last year Ma raised $30M at a valuation of $300M. This year he will start talking to investors for a new round. International expansion is on his mind. The goal is listing on the NASDAQ within five years.
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Ashley Madison: Infidelity Could Be A $1B Business
BBC - May 25 - AshleyMadison attempts to raise $200M in an IPO in London - which would value it at ~$1B. This isn't the first time Avid Life Media, Ashley Madison's parent company, have sought an IPO. In 2011, the company attempted to list in Toronto, but was forced to withdraw its offering. European investors might be willing to overlook a few things if the top line figures look good. But some potential investors have questioned the firm's numbers, after former staff and users have complained of a plethora of fake profiles on the site. The company admits many people sign up and never actually do anything. And of course, there is the competition. Gleeden, a French infidelity service that launched in 2009, says it has 2.6M members, primarily in Europe. Manuel Montevidoni, the CFO of Gleeden said: "I don't understand why Ashley Madison is looking for financing." But he supports Ashley Madison's efforts, mostly because it brings public awareness to the ubiquity of infidelity.
by Kim Gittleson
See full article at BBC
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Dating App Coffee Meets Bagel Launches In Sydney
NEWS.COM.AU - May 25 - Coffee Meets Bagel, the dating app that turned down a $30M offer from Mark Cuban on the US TV series Shark Tank, is launching in Australia. Coffee Meets Bagel introduces users to one match every day and they have 24 hours to pass or like their counterpart.
by Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
See full article at News.com.au
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BeehiveID To Host Fraud Prevention Webinar On June 4th
OPW - May 25 - BeehiveID is hosting a webinar called “Traditional Fraud Prevention is Costing you Customers” on June 4th. There will be two sessions - at 9AM CST and 3PM CST. BeehiveID helps ensure that people online are who they say they are in person. It analyzes an individual's social media history, their friends and posts to determine whether a genuine person or a spambot is posting. In this webinar, BeehiveID we will examine transactional tools traditionally used to fight fraud - how they work, and where they fall short. BeehiveID team will show you how person based data can be a much more effective barrier to fraud, as well as a critical tool for building safe online communities.
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iDate Beijing Update
OPW - May 25 - I'm in Beijing now, at the very fine Crowne Plaza U-Town. Marc Lesnick informs me that we have a stellar room full of senior executives attending from the top dating sites in Japan, India, China, and Australia. Dating operators represent OVER 90% of the attendance. Normally its 60-70%. Past Asian iDate conferences have been intense discussion and learning sessions so I'm looking forward to getting more insight and updates on this vast burgeoning market.
Post by Mark Brooks @
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AdultFriendFinder Confirms Data Breach
USA TODAY - May 22 - AdultFriendFinder has contacted law enforcement and high-profile security firm FireEye to investigate a data breach. Information including sexual preference, marital status and other personal data (dates of birth, email addresses and addresses) for as many as 4M members may have been stolen.
by Mike Snider
See full article at USA Today
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Baihe Raises $242M New Funding Ahead Of IPO
CHINAMONEYNETWORK - May 21 - Baihe.com has completed RMB1.5 billion ($242M) new round of financing, and is planning for an IPO on China's domestic stock exchange by the end of this year. The investors' identities are not revealed, but reportedly include several publicly listed Chinese companies and a number of private equity and brokerage firms.
by Nina Xiang
See full article at ChinaMoneyNetwork
Mark Brooks: I'm interviewing Jason Tian, the CEO of Baihe, at the Internet Dating Conference in Beijing this Thursday. Please comment here or email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com with any questions you recommend I ask. Thanks.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
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Rich D.C. Residents Cheat More, AshleyMadison Says
WASHINGTON POST - May 21 - Washington DC is the country’s most adulterous city for the third year in a row, according to AshleyMadison.com, a dating site for married people looking for extramarital affairs. Capitol Hill, the land of politicians, staffers and lobbyists is the neighborhood with the most cheaters. AM says 10.4% of Capitol Hill residents are registered on the site.
10 cities with the highest rate of membership on the site:
- Washington, D.C.
- Pittsburgh
- Austin
- New York
- Boston
- Los Angeles
- Las Vegas
- New Orleans
- Houston
- San Diego
by Perry Stein
See full article at Washington Post
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HeyLets Startup App Wants To Cure Boredom
BUSINESS INSIDER - May 20 - After establishing online furniture site Zanui in Australia, founder Dean Kelly went to San Fran and met his future business partner, Justin Parfitt, who at the time was working on high-end speed dating events called Fast Impressions which he later sold to POF. They launched HeyLets after they wondered why they were reading negative reviews about experiences from people they had nothing in common with. The founders recently closed $1.65M in seed funding from Blue Sky Ventures and a handful of angel investors. The app startup is aiming to raise its series A round in the next three to six months. There have been ~100K downloads to date and an Android version is on the way. Built for mobile, users upload a photo and 200 characters about an experience they enjoyed, rather than a review of a place so it focuses on recommendations.
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Momo's Transition From Dating App To Social Network Is Paying Off
TECHINASIA - May 20 - Momo has now grown to 78.1M monthly active users (MAUs), up 13% from the end of 2014, and up 83% YOY. Momo started as a location-based dating apps in China in 2011. The company has ambitions for the US market as well. After initially failing with a straight-up English version, the firm came out with an all-new app for overseas markets called Blupe. Is the same idea as Nextdoor or Microsoft’s Inlope - a social discovery network.
by Steven Millward
The full article was originally published at TechInAsia, but is no longer available.
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Dating Apps Provide Enormous Opportunity For Brands
ADWEEK - May 20 - 20th Century Fox has launched an ad campaign on Tinder for its forthcoming comedy Spy. Four of the movie's characters got fake Tinder accounts, and fans who "swipe right" can RSVP to attend a local screening. Advertising is still new territory for Tinder, with Bud Light running the app's first ads last month. Over the past six months alone, ad revenue at Grindr has grown 65%. Clients include State Farm, HotelTonight and Crunch Fitness. Advertising is still a small revenue source for dating apps. 75% of Grindr revenue comes from its ad-free paid app, which costs users $10/month.
by Lauren Johnson
See full article at AdWeek
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New Apple Watch Dating Apps
MACWORLD - May 20 - Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com were quickly to introduce a Watch app, but a few other lesser-known dating sites introduced Apple watch apps this month. Clover cuts to the chase with its "on-demand" dating. With two taps, the Clover Watch app finds users a nearby date and suggests hotspots where the two can meet. WatchMe88 works like a radar that detects singles nearby. Apple Watch faces start to glow if two compatible users are close to each other. Another app in development is "Close Encounter". The app ditches the profile photos and focuses on personality. Users get notified whenever there's a match nearby. Jack'd claims to have created the first Apple Watch app for gay guys.
by Oscar Raymundo
See full article at Macworld
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FBI Study Says Seeking Love Online Often Leads to Fraud
NBC NEWS - May 20 - In its annual online fraud report, the Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3, said total financial losses to online fraud reported to the federal government last year topped $800M. But that's just a drop in the bucket of what's presumed to be the real cost of online fraud, much of which doesn't go reported. The National White Collar Crime Center, which coordinates IC3 with the FBI, said online fraud is actually estimated to cost U.S. residents and businesses ~$3.5B a year. The worst schemes involve scammers, often masquerading as members of the military, pretending to seek love online. Romance confidence scams were the most-reported kind of fraud last year, with victims swindled out of $14,214 on average. And women were by far more likely to be targeted than men.
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Momo Q1 Financial Results: Revenue Up 383%, Net Income $6.7M
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - May 18 - Momo's Q1 revenue increased 383% YOY to $26.3M. Net income was $6.7M, compared to a net loss of $1.2M in Q1 2014. Monthly Active Users (MAU)1 were 78.1M in March 2015, an increase of 83% YOY. Membership subscription revenues were $13M, up 311% YOY. Momo paid members reached 3.1M. Mobile games revenues were $6.1M, up 212% YOY.
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