TORRENT FREAK – Oct 16 – The creator of controversial third-party Grindr app 'Fuckr' has withdrawn his opposition to a Grindr copyright complaint. Grindr filed a DMCA takedown notice with Github in September, stating that Fuckr infringes Grindr's intellectual property rights. However, after initially filing a counter-notice to have his software reinstated, Fuckr's creator has now backed away, fearing a prolonged copyright battle. Released back in 2015, the Fuckr desktop app provides controversial enhanced access to Grindr. Fuckr also gives Grindr users the ability to precisely locate hundreds of other users while revealing usually hidden information such as photos, HIV status, and even preferred sexual positions.
Month: October 2018
Parship’s Parents Company ProSieben Wants To Double Its Market Value In 5 Years
REUTERS – Oct 14 – The CEO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media wants to double the market value of the German broadcaster in the next three to five years. Max Conze said he sees ProSieben's portfolio of Internet investments in companies such as online dating agency Parship or online beauty retailer Flaconi as the main lever for a higher market capitalisation. "That was nothing five years ago, today it is worth 2B euros ($2.31B) and should double in five years," he said.
Online Dating Could Be Worth $12 Billion
BUSINESS INSIDER – Oct 13 – Wall Street thinks online dating could be the next hot sector, and the latest estimate sees the market growing to $12 billion by 2020. It all comes down to peoples' increasing willingness to try out online dating, said Mark Kelley, an analyst with Nomura Instinet. "Roughly half of Internet users are single, and we estimate 20% of them will be willing to use online dating products by 2020 (up from 15% in 2015), which equates to ~310M people globally (excluding China)," Kelly said. Match will remain the clear leader. Even Facebook shouldn't be a concern.
by Graham Rapier
See full article at Bussines Insider
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Ashley Madison Still Gets Thousands Of New Users Every Day
BUSINESS INSIDER – Oct 13 – Ashley Madison operates in 50 different countries, in 17 different languages. Even after the data breach in 2015, people keep coming back to the site. Ashley Madison currently sees 20K new sign ups a day, and ~40K affairs happen on the site every day. 'People don't generally cheat because they want to leave their relationship, says Ruben Buell, the company's director and CTO, but to outsource their sex life. Research from sociologist Alicia Walker last year found that women in particular "cheat to stay."
by Lindsay Dodgson
See full article at Business Insider
App Store Revenue 93% Higher Than Google Play In Q3: Report
MOBILE SYRUP – Oct 12 – Global consumer spending on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store totalled $18.2B in Q3 2018, according to a new report from mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower. This is a 22.7% YOY increase. The App Store generated ~93% more revenue than the Google Play Store during Q3 2018. Netflix was the top-earning non-game mobile app for the third consecutive quarter, bringing in an estimated $243.7M across Android and iOS worldwide. Dating app Tinder and China-only streaming app Tencent Video were the second and third highest grossing apps worldwide, respectively. Sensor Tower's full report can be viewed here.
The Inner Circle Just Won Deloitte Technology Fast 50
by Remco Janssen
See full article at Silicon Canals
Bumble Owner Targets Nasdaq IPO To Become World’s Top Matchmaker
BLOOMBERG – Oct 11 – The group behind Bumble is weighing an IPO in the U.S. as part of its plan to become the world's biggest dating business, according to founder Andrey Andreev. "We're now in very deep discussions with banks," including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Andreev said. Andreev, 44, is the majority shareholder of Bumble owner Rimberg International Corp., a holding company that also controls gay-dating app Chappy and London-based Badoo. Andreev, who founded Badoo in 2006, hopes the IPO will help his firm overtake Match Group. Andreev said revenue may be as much as $400M this year, which is less than a third of Match's $1.33B last year. Bumble would be the "umbrella brand" for any IPO, which won't happen before year-end, he said. Badoo invested $10M to help Wolfe Herd start Bumble, giving Andreev's group a stake of ~75%. Today, Bumble has 41M users, more than double from a year ago. "Bumble is going crazy," Andreev said. "Bumble is already in Germany, and it's growing at 500% a month there."
by Sophie Alexander & Benjamin Stupples
See full article at Bloomberg
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Lumen Survey: People Struggle To Predict Age By Looking At Photos
MIRROR.CO.UK – Oct 12 – Four in 10 said they find it "very difficult" to correctly predict someone's age by looking at a photo of them, according to a survey by Lumen, the dating app for 50+. Charly Lester, co-founder of Lumen, conducted the survey as part of its 'anti-ageism' mission to end the misperceptions associated with this group. Lumen found that in tests conducted by the app, many people associate images of people in their sixties and seventies as being in their fifties.
by Lewis Oakley
See full article at Mirror.co.uk
Dating Startup Betterhalf.AI Raises $500K In Seed Funding
by Prajakta Hebbar
See full article at Analytics India Magazine
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No ICO For Dating Startup Ohlala
GRUENDERSZENE – Oct 11 – "Paid dating" startup Ohlala wanted to raise 100M Eur from an ICO. But Ohlala's founder Pia Poppenreiter now said there will be no public token sale. "I realized that this would not serve the larger goal of building a sustainable, global player in the paid dating industry," said the founder. The Ohlala team does not seem to be the only one that currently disregards an ICO. ICO global investment fell sharply as the year progressed: In January, companies raised $ 2.4B in ICO compared to $300M in September. ICOs can be a huge risk for the investors: Those who participated in the ICO of the Frankfurt Fintechs Savedroid money, lost 93% of their money.
by Pauline Schnor
See full article at GruenderSzene
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.