WALL STREET JOURNAL – May 29 – When Greg Blatt announced his plan to resign as Match Group CEO in 2017, the company presented the transition as orderly and planned well in advance. Privately, executives at Match Group and IAC expressed concerns that a sexual-assault allegation against the CEO might become public and discussed how long to say the transition had been in the works, according to documents filed this week in a lawsuit the companies have been battling in New York state court. "The company has nothing to hide," a spokesperson for IAC said in a statement. A lawsuit filed in 2018 over Tinder's valuation included a claim from Rosette Pambakian, a former Tinder VP, that Mr. Blatt groped and harassed her at a company party in Dec 2016. The suit says Match Group knew about the allegation but played it down to keep Mr. Blatt in place as he worked on the valuation. Mr. Blatt has said in a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Pambakian that the incident was consensual. Match Group fired Ms. Pambakian in 2018. She filed a wrongful termination suit against Match Group and IAC in California state court, saying that the firing was connected to her going public with her sexual-assault allegation. Match Group has denied that claim.
Month: May 2021
Subscribe to Get OPW.news by Email
OPW – May 31 – We're dedicated to providing executive summaries on the news you can use, to get smarter, and make better decisions.
Toronto Man Creates Dating App That Celebrates Asian Culture
CBC.CA – May 28 – New dating app, called Alike, is the brainchild of Hanmin Yang, a Korean-Canadian living in Toronto. CBC News spoke to Yang about what inspired him to create the app, and what he hopes users take away from it.
Grindr Sponsors French Second-Tier Rugby Club
BLOOMBERG – May 28 – Players at French rugby club Biarritz Olympique will carry the name and logo of Grindr on their shirts in a rare sponsorship deal that kicks in next season. The club will receive ~$1.2M a year under the deal.
London-based Paired Lands €2.9M
EU STARTUPS – May 26 – Paired, a leading app to improve romantic relationships, has raised €2.9M in seed funding, bringing the total raised by the company to date ~€3.7M. Paired is a fun, evidence-based app that prompts daily conversations between partners. Since launching in October 2020 it has ~5K paying subscribers, with growing audiences in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada. The investment will accelerate the company’s global growth ambitions and scale up its product development efforts, giving users personalised recommendations based on their relationship interests and needs.
by Charlotte Tucker
See full article at EU Startups
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
Meet Schmooze, a Meme-Based Dating App
TECH CRUNCH – May 26 – Schmooze combines machine learning and memes to connect people based on humor algorithm. A beta test in late summer with 200 Stanford students has since led to 10K downloads around the country. Currently ~200 memes are added each day, while others are deleted. 90K matches have been made to date. It recently closed on $270K in seed funding from Ulu Ventures and others to tinker with its product.
by Connie Loizos
See full article at Tech Crunch
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com
New Dating App Thursday Launches Today
MIRROR.CO.UK – May 26 – Friends George Rawlings and Matt McNeill Love have set up a brand new dating app – Thursday – which launches today. Instead of spending evening after evening scrolling through potential matches, Thursday will only let users log on once a week. Thursday also offers a 'stories' which allow users to share short video clips with potential matches that are automatically deleted after 24 hours. All matches and conversation disappear at midnight on Thursday.
How Match’s Black and Hispanic Dating Apps Are Helping Close the Vaccine Gap
Y Combinator-backed Matchmaking Startup Betterhalf.ai Raises $3M
YOUR STORY – May 26 – BetterHalf.ai, the AI-driven matrimonial app, has raised $3M in a pre-Series A round. The startup will use the funding to boost its app engagement, build monetisation features, and product discovery across organic channels, it said in a statement. Earlier, Betterhalf.ai had raised a $2.3M seed round from Y Combinator, Tribe Capital, Nurture Ventures, and Saurabh Garg (Founder/CBO, NoBroker) and Shailesh Rao (Ex-MD of Google India, former Partner, TPG Capital). Founded in 2016 by MIT graduate Rahul Namdev and serial entrepreneur Pawan Gupta, the AI platform uses predictive analysis to help professionals find a match through compatibility scores based on relationship dimensions and their interactions on the product.
by Sindhu Kashyaap
See full article at Your Story
See the top news on Betterhalf.ai
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com