PRESS RELEASE – May 2 – "Match Group is off to a solid start in 2017," said Greg Blatt, Chairman and CEO. Revenue was $299M, a 15% YOY increase, led by a 30% increase in direct international revenue. Operating income grew to $59M, a YOY 72% increase. Average PMC grew 16% to 5.9M.
The full article was originally published at Match Group website, but is no longer available.
WASHINGTON POST – May 2 – "A Suitable Girl," a new documentary film, which premiered at last week's Tribeca Film Festival, follows Amrita, Ritu and Dipti, three young, middle-class women in India, as they approach their respective arranged marriages. The film's directors, Sarita Khurana and Smriti Mundhra, who are both Indian American women and won the festival's award for new documentary director, are trying to overturn stereotypes about arranged marriage. Despite the major changes and modernization India has undergone in the 70 years since its independence, cultural norms toward marriage haven't changed much. None of them thought [remaining single] was an option, or could imagine their lives as unmarried women in Indian society.
Mark Brooks: I recently went to Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai to film a mini-documentary about Indian dating apps vs matrimony services. The ~40 minute movie will 'premier' at the Internet Dating Conference on June 1st at 5pm.
by Galileo Russell
See full article at Seeking Alpha
ACCESSWIRE – May 2 – German dating company Affinitas, which operates premium online dating platforms EliteSingles, eDarling and Attractive World, is merging with Spark Networks. The newly formed company will be named Spark Networks SE and will be headquartered in Berlin, and maintain a significant U.S. presence with offices in New York City and Lehi, Utah. The combination will create a company with ~$115M of pro forma combined revenue over the twelve months. EliteSingles shareholders will own ~75% of Spark Networks SE and Spark shareholders will own 25%. Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of EliteSingles, will serve as CEO and Robert O'Hare, Spark's CFO, will continue in that role with the combined company. Michael Schrezenmaier, Managing Director of EliteSingles, will become COO. The Board of Directors will be comprised of seven directors, including three to be selected by EliteSingles, one to be selected by Spark, and three to be mutually agreed upon by EliteSingles and Spark.
See the full article at Internet Dating Newswire
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
OPW – May 3 – While tickets last, there's a few tickets available for Behave, the Behavioral Marketing Conference in NYC next week on May 7-9. See agenda. Some killer speakers, including the inimitable Dr Cialdini who wrote Presuasion recently. If you want to get a deeper understanding of user behavior, this is the conference for digital behavioral marketing. Tix are just $500 here with our special discount. I'll be there, so please let me know if you're headed to the show. 😉
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks
FINANCE MAGNATES – May 1 – Matchpool raised $5.73M in just over a day to fund its blockchain-based 'Slack Meets Tinder' matchmaking platform. Its Guppy token (GUP) began trading at the Bittrex Exchange on Saturday. Users on the Matchpool platform are incentivized by the GUP token. Tokens can be used as a deposit for opening a pool, and each pool creator decides its payment rules. Users inside the pool pay the creator according to their rules, and creators earn tokens by making matches. Pool creators will receive their deposit tokens back when they close a pool. Token holders can trade or sell their GUP on cryptocurrency exchanges, Bittrex being the first.
MYREPUBLICA – May 1 – According to the Digital Market Outlook (DMO) by Statista, the country with the largest share of adults paying for a dating service is the United States (26%), followed by UK (21%) and Germany (17%).
by Samantha Cheh
See full article at Tech in Asia
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