GLOBE NEWSWIRE – Feb 12 – BlueCity, a world-leading LGBTQ community platform, launched the "Let Love Go Home" campaign, which pushes for greater LGBTQ acceptance and understanding among the families of community members in China as the country celebrates. According to a recent poll, 70% of respondents still have not come out to their families.
Month: February 2021
Online Dating Market is Worth $35.7M in Mexico
EXPLICA – Feb 15 – The market for online dating services is expected to generate $ 3.2B in global revenue by the end of 2021. The estimate for Mexico is $ 35.7M, according to Statista. In 2020, 5.2M Mexicans confessed to having used an app service to find a partner. The most popular app is Tinder. Last March, 723K people downloaded Tinder compared to 299K in February.
Tinder, Bumble and Hinge Show Surge in Americans Looking for Love Online
by Yan Wu
See full article at Wall Street Journal
See the top news on Tinder
See the top news on Bumble
See the top news on Hinge
Dating App Aisle Connects Singles Looking for ‘Serious’ Relationships
YOURSTORY – Feb 15 – Aisle is designed to connect people of Indian origin from across the globe, who are looking for serious relationships. According to Founder and CEO Able Joseph, Aisle is the second-most downloaded dating app in the country, and the "market leader in high-intent dating". Founded in 2014, Aisle finds a middle-ground between dating apps and matrimonial platforms. In its last quarter, the app recorded 16% more downloads than Bumble. Since inception, Aisle has acquired ~3M users. Aisle has so far raised Rs 3.7 crore ($500K) from angel investors.
Bumble: a Profit Machine at the Wrong Price
SEEKING ALPHA – Feb 15 – The company is too expensive at the moment despite excellent business results. Bumble has the first-mover advantage in addressing a problem that women have in the dating space. In Wolfe's telling, women are taught to let men be the aggressors. The company's value proposition is very compelling to women and it shows in the demographics of the app: there are 30% more women than men on Bumble. In total, as of Sep 30, 2020, the company had 42M monthly active users: 40.7M MAUs coming from Bumble and Badoo (12.3M MAUs from Bumble and 28.4M MAUs from Badoo). Having grown 49% in 2019, to 855,600 in 2019, Bumble's paid users grew a further 30% YOY, for the first nine months of 2020 to 1.1M. Though the number of paid users in Badoo fell by 9% in 2019 to 1.2M, they grew 10% YOY for the first nine months of 2020 to 1.3M. Wolfe has been an excellent capital allocator, growing returns on invested capital (ROIC) from -39.2% in 2018, to 179.7% in 2019 and 178.8% for the trailing twelve months (TTM) period. Unfortunately, Bumble Inc’s P/E multiple is 51, based on our adjusted earnings per share, which is very unattractive.
Toronto Singles Turn to Live Virtual Dating Events to Connect
THE STAR – Feb 15 – Andrea Lo is the founder of Toronto Dating Hub. "It's like being at a virtual pub or house party," she explains. "You can talk as a larger group but also in smaller groups and individually." Lo moderates the conversations with icebreaker questions. Toronto Dating Hub is just one of many online dating operations that are hosting virtual events for singles. While Matt Paoli first started Flare Events as an in-person speed dating company in February 2020, he quickly pivoted to virtual during the pandemic. Since then, he's been organizing three to four online speed-dating events per month. Flare hosts its speed-dating events through Zoom. They typically have 10 to 14 participants and begin with a half-hour icebreaker conversation. Then the host puts participants into breakout rooms for eight-minute, one-on-one chats to get to know each other. Celebrity matchmaker and online dating expert Carmelia Ray is a fan of online dating events. "I don't have to leave my house," she says.
CitySwoon on How They Reinvented Speed Dating During COVID
CANBERRA TIMES – Feb 13 – CitySwoon was already reinventing speed dating long before COVID came and upended everything. It was evident the dating world was going digital, long before COVID. This is why CitySwoon decided to look into taking its speed dating service online even before the pandemic and the company was well on its way to launching a custom platform when COVID hit. Unlike a Zoom, the platform allows for both group chat – so that the speed dating hosts can chat to everyone at once – and private calls so participants can still have that one-on-one experience. After each date, participants rate their date out of five.
Former Bumble Advisor on Bumble’s Debut
BLOOMBERG – Feb 12 – Former Bumble Advisor Sarah Kunst gives her outlook on investing in Bumble and the dating app's debut. She speaks to Vonnie Quinn on "Bloomberg Markets."
How a Breakup Spurred a New Venture – Birdy
ENTREPRENEURSHIP – Feb 13 – Laid up in bed, Juliette Swann had a lot of time to think. She recently had broken up with her boyfriend of five years. Then she fell off a horse and landed badly, breaking a vertebrae. Two surgeries, and two months in bed, followed the accident. Swann is the founder and CEO of Birdy, a dating app that emphasizes personality and compatibility rather than the more superficial, picture-heavy approach of other dating sites. Birdy users first take a personality test, inspired by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Test results are used to match users with people they are compatible with. Before users see pictures of their matches, however, they first view each other's "storybooks," which essentially are profiles in which people talk about their passions and values, share memes, and upload pictures (but not of themselves). Only after both parties agree to move forward are their selfies revealed. Swann says that 60% of Birdy users are women.
Struck – a Dating App for Astrology Lovers
CHICAGO TRIBUNE – Feb 13 – Struck, a dating app that matches users based on their birth charts (the placements of the sun, moon and planets at the time of a person's birth), launched this past summer, initially in LA, San Francisco and New York. The new app recently became available to Chicago residents. To get started on Struck, users create their profiles, and must enter their birth information, so Struck can generate a birth chart to help find suitable matches. While signing up, users choose a list of personality traits, uniquely populated off their birth chart, and life priorities, such as family, arts and culture, socializing and partying.
by Hannah Herrera Greenspan
See full article at Chicago Tribune