Month: July 2021

Matrimony.com to Acquire Leading Wedding Services Aggregator ShaadiSaga

Posted on July 7, 2021

Shaadisaga logo 2021APN NEWS – July 7 – Matrimony.com, India's leading online matrimony company, has signed definitive agreements to acquire a 100% stake in Boatman Tech Private Limited, promoters of ShaadiSaga.com (a Delhi-based fast-growing online wedding services company) as approved by its Board of Directors. Founded in 2015, ShaadiSaga is a leading player in the Wedding Services industry, with 40K vendors across multiple services and catering to customers across 15 major cities in the country. Following this acquisition, ShaadiSaga's founders – Himanshu Kapsime (CEO) and Manish Garg (COO), along with another key leader – Niraj Patel (CPO) will join Matrimony.com in senior leadership roles.

See full article at APN News

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Match Group Is Pioneering the Family-Friendly Workplace

Posted on July 7, 2021

Match-Group-logo 2021DALLAS INNOVATES – July 7 – Match Group has a commitment to a family friendly culture that starts at the top. Its benefits include full healthcare coverage, paid parental leave following a birth or adoption, on-site nursing rooms, accommodations for those considering parenthood, child care assistance, a partnership with Care.com, and more.

by Michael Wood
See full article at Dallas Innnovates

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A Date With Hinge’s Justin McLeod to Talk Tinder, VC Letdowns and Selling Out

Posted on July 7, 2021

Hinge logo 2020SIFTED.EU – July 7 – Hinge is now dubbed the 'relationship app'. It currently ranks among the top three most downloaded dating apps across the US, Australia and the UK, and has rolled out a freemium model. The app launched in Feb 2013, quickly pivoting from desktop to mobile. Users didn't get it. Investors didn't get it. Funding proved a constant struggle for McLeod, and it would be three years until he could lure institutional money. "We really struggled for a long time to get investment… until Tinder started to take off. Hinge raked in $20M in those early years. Yet by 2016, when McLeod began raising his Series B, VCs had gone cold again. Part of the problem was Hinge had stalled. The app had gone dormant a year earlier as part of a reboot to move it away from swiping into serious matchmaking. "I was begging [VCs]… I was offering valuations that were embarrassingly low. I went everywhere trying to make this deal happen." It was a buyout that would eventually come to his rescue. In 2018, McLeod accepted Match.com's offer for a complete takeover. "I didn't really have a choice," McLeod admits. "In order for us to compete, we needed to raise a lot more money… There was kinda no other option than to find a strategic buyer like Match."

by Isabel Woodford
See full article at Sifted.eu

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S’More, New Anti-Superficial Dating App

Posted on July 7, 2021

Smore logoFOX10.TV – July 7 – Founder and CEO Adam Cohen-Aslatei describes his app S'More as the world's first anti-superficial dating app that puts character and personality first. The term S'More, referring to daters looking for more than a pretty face, something a little more substantial. Cohen-Aslatei explains S'More is different from other dating apps in the marketplace. "On S'More you get to hear a person's voice and interact with them before you dismiss them, before you make a judgement on someone based on a headshot." S'More verifies its users' profiles to reduce instances of catfishing and other bad-faith actions, gives users a behavior score to encourage positive activity, and they are integrating with Amazon's new AI "Recognition" technology to further protect its community. Moreover, the team recently launched S'MoreTV, a celebrity video service that connects daters based on similar content interests.

See full article at Fox10.TV

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Dating App Hinge Celebrates Singles ‘Breaking up’ With the App

Posted on July 7, 2021

Hinge 2021 campaignADNEWS – July 7 – Dating app Hinge has unveiled its latest international ad campaign that celebrates the ultimate moment all dating apps users long for – finally deleting their profile. "Breakups are hard. But breaking up with your dating app is pretty fun," Hinge creative director Josh Yeston says. The new spots are a part of Hinge's ongoing Designed to be Deleted campaign and were produced in partnership with advertising agency, Opinionated. The campaign, which launches on July 12 in the U.S., will roll out globally over the next few months across television, video on demand, streaming, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.

by Paige Murphy
See full article at Adnews

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Netflix Buys ‘Tinder Swindler’ Documentary

Posted on July 7, 2021

Tinder swindlerVARIETY – July 7 – Netflix has picked up global rights to the documentary "Tinder Swindler," about a notorious con man who lured women using the popular dating app and tricked them out of millions of dollars. Produced by "Three Identical Strangers" and "Don't F*** With Cats" makers Raw TV, alongside AGC Studios, the doc tells the story of Israeli fraudster Shimon Hayut, who conned Scandinavian women into parting with hundreds of thousands of dollars by pretending to be a Russian oligarch named Simon Leviev on Tinder.

by Manori Ravindran
See full article at Yahoo Sport

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Hinge CEO on Overcoming Addiction and Building a Multimillion-dollar Dating App

Posted on July 7, 2021

Hinge justin mcleod 2020-1CNBC – July 7 – Justin McLeod, co-founder and CEO of Hinge, originally created the dating app "to solve my own problem." But after launch, it wasn't working; users weren't finding lasting relationships. Since McLeod was actively using the app himself, he saw its issues firsthand and decided to pivot. McLeod and his team completely rebooted the company in 2015 and again in 2016 – by 2015, Hinge had raised $26M, and Hinge burned through most of its funds. Rather than focusing on growth, engagement and users' time on the app, Hinge started to prioritize getting users on dates. The company created Hinge Labs to help users navigate their relationships beyond their initial match. That year, Hinge had an estimated valuation of $75.5M, after raising $17.5M in a Series A seed round led by Shasta Ventures. In 2019, Match Group announced that it fully acquired Hinge for an undisclosed amount.

by Taylor Locke
See full article at CNBC

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U.S. Lifestyle Apps Installs Hit a Record 151M in Q1 2021

Posted on July 7, 2021

SENSOR TOWER – July 6 – Lifestyle category apps are off to a strong start in 2021, both in terms of adoption and consumer spending in the U.S., according to Sensor Tower's State of Lifestyle Apps 2021 report. U.S. consumer spending on lifestyle apps hit ~$300M in Q1. Excluding Tinder, which introduced direct payments on Android, the Lifestyle category saw a compound annual growth rate of ~50% in U.S. consumer spending since the Q1 of 2018. For the first time ever, Lifestyle category apps saw 151M first-time installs in Q1 2021, up 10% YOY. This growth in adoption was driven especially by Android users; Google Play installs reached 69M last quarter, up 30% Q/Q. This brought Google Play's share of the downloads to 46%, which was the highest it had seen since 1Q18. Match Group maintained a strong presence in the top charts in Q1 '21, taking seven out of the 10 spots in the top dating apps by U.S. consumer spending.

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Playoff – Athlete’s Dating App

Posted on July 7, 2021

Playoff logoSMDP – July 6 – A basketball player, college athlete and high school basketball coach Amanda McGrew launched Playoff, the only dating app for college and professional athletes, in December 2017. The app now has 50K users, including professional athletes from every major sport and several Olympians. The idea for Playoff came to McGrew when she took a break from coaching high school students and suddenly found her nights and weekends free.

See full article at SMDP

Krafton Acquired Chatbot Entertainment Startup ‘ThingsFlow’

Posted on July 6, 2021

Thingsflow logoKOREATECHDESK – July 5 – Krafton, the Korean gaming startup behind mobile game PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), bought a 'chat entertainment content' startup Thingsflow, and in May 2021, it had acquired 'Between', a Korean dating app from Socar subsidiary mobility startup VCNC.

See full article at KoreaTechDesk

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com