THE 405 – Sep 25 – New London-based app CLiKD is launching a music-based dating app to help music lovers find their soulmate based on musical taste.
Month: September 2017
Zhenai.com: Money Still Driver In Politically Incorrect Matchmaking World
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST – Sep 24 – When it comes to dating, Chinese men are most interested in what women look like, while women want to know about a man's income. Primary-school teachers and nurses are in high demand among men, while women favour men in IT or finance. That's according to Dr Song Li, founder of Zhenai.com, one of China's biggest matchmaking sites. Zhenai.com says it has 120M registered users, and ~50K new users join the dating every day. Zhenai.com offers two services: a "self-service dating service" where members pay 400 yuan ($60) a year to browse members' profiles, chat and arrange dates; the other is a more exclusive offline, face-to-face matchmaking service that costs 4K yuan for six months. Zhenai has 50 matchmaking centres in 37 cities across China, and Li says he expects the company to generate 1.5B yuan in revenue and 200M yuan in net profit this year.
by Kate Whitehead
See full article at South China Morning Post
Tanya Fathers To Speak On Investments For Dating At iDate, London
WEBWIRE – Sep 20 – Tanya Fathers, Managing Partner at CaerusInCube Private Investment fund, will speak on investments in dating apps and businesses at the European Internet dating conference (Oct 3-4, 2017).
The Meet Group To Acquire German Dating App Lovoo
BUSINESSWIRE – Sep 20 – The Meet Group is acquiring Lovoo, a social dating app, for $70M in cash, inclusive of a $5M contingent earn-out. Lovoo is a social and mobile technology company based in Germany, #1 dating app in German speaking countries (Germany, Switzerland and Austria) in terms of app store downloads. Lovoo has €27.2M in revenues (based on Subscriptions 48%; In-app Purchases 24%; Ads 28%); 5M monthly active users and 1.9M daily active users; 47k new global registrations per day; and 97 full-time employees spread across Dresden and Berlin. The Company expects that Lovoo will remain a separate brand and standalone mobile app following the closing of the acquisition, and that Lovoo's headquarters will remain in Dresden, Germany. The Meet Group's portfolio includes MeetMe, Skout, Tagged, and Hi5.
See full article at BusinessWire
Cupid And LoveAgain To Speak At iDate, London
WEBWIRE – Sep 18 – Roman Kirsanov, head of brand management at NSI Holdings Ltd, will speak on brand and portfolio management for driving growth in online dating. Roman develops dating brands such as Cupid.com, LoveAgain.com, UniformDating.com, SpeedDater.co.uk, and will share insights on activities that engage audiences online.
M8 Wants Your Friends To Be The Matchmaker
TECH CRUNCH – Sep 20 – M8 is a dating app that's powered by human matchmakers. With M8, friends can look through dating apps to find the perfect match for their friends. And if they're successful, they can be rewarded with gifts. Stephen Liu, co-founder and CEO said that he had the idea because he and his wife started dating after a friend vouched for him. So he co-founded the platform with his wife, Linda. So far, they've raised ~$700k for their startup idea. LegalZoom co-founder Brian Liu and Alibaba Group VP Brian Wong are amongst the angel investors.
Algorithmic Insights Can Help Us Become Better People
SINGULARITY HUB – Sep 19 – In an interview at Singularity University's Global Summit in San Francisco, J. Galen Buckwalter said the quantitative study of personality is finding new tech applications. Buckwalter developed the matching algorithm at eHarmony and is now chief technology officer at psyML. His work focuses on the quantitative analysis of personality traits and how a better understanding of human behavior can lead to more human technology. Watch the interview in full for more on psychometrics, current and future applications in technology, and where the pioneer of online dating met his wife.
Plenty Of Fish Brings Dating To The Google Assistant
PR NEWSWIRE – Sep 19 – POF users can now retrieve unread messages and send responses via the Assistant on Google Home and phones. The voice integration allows users to ask the Google Assistant if they have new messages, which it will then read aloud to the individual as they go about their daily routine. Users can speak with POF via the Google Assistant by saying, "Ok Google, talk to Plenty of Fish."
Hinge’s New App Lets Users Play Matchmaker
Chinese Government Tells Dating Websites To Vet Users
SIXTH TONE – Sep 19 – The Communist Youth League, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued a joint directive on Monday requiring dating sites to keep a record of their users' real identities. The regulation came nearly two weeks after Jiayuan.com fell under scrutiny for the suicide of tech entrepreneur Su Xiangmao. The 37-year-old founder of the Skype-like app WePhone jumped to his death from his Beijing apartment building earlier this month. In a suicide note he posted online, Su accused his ex-wife, Zhai Xinxin, whom he met through Jiayuan.com, of driving him to despair and desperation.