TECH IN ASIA – Feb 3 – Tantan is Tinder's carbon copy. It’s not clear how many users Tantan has. The iOS version has just three reviews on the iTunes store, one of which complains about a lack of users. But founders Pan Ying and Wang Yu claim that the app has a weekly active user rate of 80%.
by C. Custer
The full article was originally published at Tech In Asia, but is no longer available.
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 3 -Tinder Plus, the paid version of Tinder, offering features like an Undo button for errant swipes and a Passport option for searching outside users' current geographic region, is going to launch in the U.S. in March. Tinder Plus is rumored to cost $6.99 per month.
EUROPEANCEO – Feb 3 – Didier Rappaport is the man behind the second largest video platform, Dailymotion, and now online dating app Happn that secured $8M of investment last year. The app is available in Paris, but also in London and Berlin.
Q: How did you get people to believe in your product?
A: When you show to investors that you are able to scale a business in three different cities in Europe, it means that you know how to scale.
Q: How does it make money?
A: It is a freemium model.
Q: You also invest in many start-ups. What do you look for in a new business?
A: The idea, but the team who will execute it is even more important.
Q: What’s the next big thing?
A: Everything that will appear will be mobile. It could be wearable technologies or objects.
SEEKING ALPHA – Feb 3 – Smaller companies in the social media sector have been under pressure since Fed Chair Janet Yellen said that social media stocks were overvalued. But some of these companies, and in particular MeetMe, just may be worth investing in because of the significant growth/ turnaround in performance. This week the company has surpassed 1.1M mobile daily active users for the first time ever. Much of MeetMe's revenues come from the sale of its digital credits and its membership dues. It also relies on ad revenue. The company has recently signed an agreement with a well-known ad firm Beanstock Media to generate ads revenues on its mobile platform. Meetme reported Q3 net income of $52K.
TECH CRUNCH – Feb 3 – With the increasing popularity of dating apps like Tinder, Hinge, Antidate and Bumble, singles are spending a lot more time swiping than going on dates. Couplelizer, a new dating app that launched in November, is aiming to incentivize and accelerate the ‘going on a date’ component. Users can wait around to be invited on dates or they can create dates themselves. Invites include a dynamic expiry time to encourage snappier decisions. If a date doesn’t turn up they can expect to get a negative review from whoever they stood up. The app has ~2K registered users, who have sent ~4K invitations so far. It's free but there’s a virtual currency mechanism to charge for dating events, and for the ability to chat with other users.
FORBES – Feb 9 – Avid Life Media is a privately held Toronto holding company that owns Ashley Madison, CougarLife and other dating sites. Avid Life Media grossed $115M for 2014, up 45% from the $78M it grossed in 2013. Pretax profits will come in at $55M. Worldwide, Ashley Madison has had 31M total users over its lifetime, with 6.8M active users. CEO Noel Biderman says his company is worth $1B. Match.com is worth $3.8B, or 12 times estimated 2015 operating earnings, and Tinder $1.3B, or 18 times estimated earnings. A sale would be a healthy but not crazy-big payday for Biderman. He owns just over 10% of the firm after selling off most of it in a $40M round in 2007. Ashley Madison launched in Israel, Hong Kong, Turkey and India in 2014 and is launching next in Thailand, with plans afoot for Russia, Ukraine and Nigeria.
by Adam Tanner
See full article at Forbes
WSJ – Jan 31 – Josh Israel moved to India, hoping to create the Tinder of India. He launched Thrill. As he monitored his users, he saw that many men were opening multiple accounts and using fake photos. After a year of overhauling, the app re-launched last week. It uses Facebook to confirm identities. Men with fewer than 150 friends and those with fewer than five profile pictures are rejected. Men whose profiles say they are married or in a relationship are also locked out. People Group, the parent company of Shaadi, has recently paid $1M for 25% stake in Mr. Israel's company. Mr. Israel also agreed to redesign Fropper, one of India's first dating sites that he started a decade ago.
UT SAN DIEGO – Jan 26 – Online dating has a reputation for failing but the odds are improving with new startups entering the market, such as SingldOut, Wyldfire and Neqtr. SingldOut, a service that uses LinkedIn and DNA to predict matches, raised $600K last year. Wyldfire, an app that lets the women vet and pick which men are allowed into their dating community, just raised $450K. "It's very inspirational to see all these newcomers, because we haven't had enough innovation in this industry," said Mark Brooks, an online dating analyst and consultant. The matchmaking industry has been behind the technology curve for years, he said. "People like Internet dating, because it gives them more options and lets them get the tough questions out of the way up front." The market is full. "It’s a very sexy business", said Brooks. "Singldout is interesting because of the LinkedIn login…not so much the DNA, because that's been done before and it failed because it was too expensive," he said. "Wyldfire probably has the most promise because it gets at the authentication and validation that's currently missing from most sites. Women are pretty good at weeding out the creeps. I like Neqtr because of the donation element. They're getting people at their point of passion, which is helping people, and I think this is a very good matchmaking criteria. I think it will be streamlined, and they won't need quite so many people to grow," said Mark Brooks.
by Katherine P. Harvey
See full article at UT San Diego
GOOD MORNING AMERICA – Jan 29 – Starbucks and Match.com are teaming up to create "the world’s largest Starbucks date" on Feb. 13. Match has already rolled out the product feature, called “Meet at Starbucks,” which enables users to invite others for a cup of coffee at Starbucks and find the best mutual location with the click of a button.
BLOOMBERG – Jan 29 – Russian online-dating service Topface said it paid a hacker an undisclosed sum, preventing the person from selling or leaking 20M user addresses. The theft raises concerns about data security in Russia, where two biggest Internet companies, Yandex NV and Mail.ru Group Ltd, reported leaks of millions of accounts last year. Topface has 90M registered accounts, according to its website.
by Ilya Khrennikov
The full article was originally published at Bloomberg, but is no longer available.