Category: All Acquisitions

Cupid Sells Casual Dating Sites For £43 Million

Posted on July 16, 2013

Cupidplc logo new dec 12INDEPENDENT – July 15 – Cupid sold its BeNaughty.com, Flirt.com and other casual dating sites to Grendall Investment for £43.1M (€50M). The company would retain Cupid.com, LoveAgain.com and UniformDating.com. It also signed a software licensing agreement with Grendall that would generate £2M of revenue over four years. Grendall Investment is managed by Max Polyakov, co-founder of Cupid, who also holds a 15% stake in the company.

See full article at Independent

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ReseauContact.com To Be Acquired By Mediagrif

Posted on June 3, 2013

Reseaucontact logo01AMOUR – May 31 – ReseauContact.com, a dating site in Quebec, is going to be acquired by Montreal-based Mediagrif. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. ReseauContact.com has 1.4M registered members.

See full article at 01Amour

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Meetic Buys Pastas Party For Its Singles Events

Posted on May 20, 2013

Meetic logo newREUTERS – May 20 – Meetic has acquired the assets of Pastas Party, the leading French website for singles events. Created in 2007 by Héloïse Dion, Pastas Party has developed a range of singles events across France and runs a community of ~100K singles. In December 2012 Meetic launched a complementary offline event service – Meetic Soirées. Already ~ 300 Soirées have been organised. Héloïse Dion and her team will be responsible for creating Soirées in each European country covered by the Meetic group.

The full article was originally published at Reuters, but is no longer available.

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Gaydar Has Been Sold To The Creator Of Channel 4′s Big Breakfast

Posted on May 17, 2013

Gaydar logo new May 13PINKNEWS – May 17 – British TV producer Charlie Parsons, who created Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast and The Word, has added Gaydar.co.uk to his business portfolio. QSoft Consulting, the former owner of dating site Gaydar.co.uk, announced in May 2012 it was seeking a “significant cash investment” to fund its “ambition for global growth”. Gaydar founder Henry Badenhorst has left the company and the new management team, led by Trevor Martin, will include Charlie Parsons and Mark Speeks who will both join the Gaydar board of directors with immediate effect.

by Scott Roberts
The full article was originally published at Pink News, but is no longer available.

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eDarling Buys Itself Back From eHarmony

Posted on May 8, 2013

Edarling logo newVENTURE VILLAGE – May 8 – A two-year affair between eDarling and eHarmony is over. eHarmony purchased a 30% stake in eDarling with an option to buy the rest if all went well. Now that offer is off the table and eDarling has bought back its shares from eHarmony. Rumours put the cost of the buyback at $30M with talk it will be followed by an eDarling launch in the UK. The company behind eDarling, Affinitas, reported a €9.2M loss for 2011, an improvement on the €13.6M loss it reported for 2010. In May last year, it said it expected slightly positive EBITDA on a boosted €50M turnover for 2012. It’s unclear who led the break-up – but it seems both firms were more than ready for a refresh in strategy.

The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.

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Facebook Might Be Buying Bang With Friends For $30 Million

Posted on April 2, 2013

Bangwithfriends logoTECH2 – Apr 2 – It looks like it is time for Facebook to immerse itself into the world of dating. Rumours have emerged that Facebook might be mulling over buying controversial app Bang With Friends. The purchase of Bang With Friends will officially mark Facebook’s foray into the world of online dating. Using the app, users can figure out people in your friend list who could potentially be up for sexual encounters. Facebook also apparently tried to clone the product before approaching the founders of Bang With Friends. Yahoo too seems to have Bang with Friends on its radar as a possible acquisition.

by Nishtha Kanal
The full article was originally published at Tech2, but is no longer available.

Meetic Bought Swedish Dating Site SprayDate

Posted on February 28, 2013

Spraydate logoMY NEWSWEEK – Feb 28 – Meetic has signed an agreement for the acquisition of SprayDate, Swedish dating site owned by Keynote Media Group. SprayDate started 12 years ago and was the Swedish pioneer of online dating. The cost of the acquisition has not been disclosed. Philippe Chainieux, Meetic's CEO said in a statement: "The acquisition will consolidate Meetic Group's leading position in Sweden, where online dating service will be continued through the Match.com brand.

The full article was originally published at MyNewsDesk, but is no longer available.

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Jiayuan.com Acquires Its Aging Rival

Posted on February 19, 2013

Juedui100 logoMORNINGWHISTLE – Feb 19 – Jiayuan.com has bought competitor juedui100.com. Juedui100.com, established in 2005 has in the past reported ~8M registered users. However, it has suffered from business difficulties so that by the end of 2010, no more than 20 employees were still employed. Experts seem to not be very optimistic about the acquisition. The acquisition will not effectively increase the number of validated users for jiayuan.com. Jiayuan.com should focus on the growing market such as the development of mobile clients instead of acquiring an aging rival. At present, the Chinese online dating market is divided by three giants – jiayuan.com, baihe.com and zhenai.com.

The full article was originally published at Morning Whistle, but is no longer available.

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SpeedDate.com Sold To IAC

Posted on February 7, 2013

Screen Shot 2013-02-07 at 2.56.29 PMOPW – Feb 7 – SpeedDate.com, the online webcam enhanced speed dating service that launched in 2007, has been sold to IAC. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. We will update this post with more information later. 

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Pair Buys UK’s Cupple And Rebrands As Couple

Posted on February 4, 2013

Couple app screenshotTECH CRUNCH – Feb 3 – Tenthbit, the mobile app studio behind the couples app Pair, has bought Cupple, a UK-based rival mobile app for two people only, and has rebranded itself as Couple. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Tenthbit raised a seed round of $4.2M in May 2012. Cupple will, for now, remain as a standalone app, but users will have the ability to migrate their data to Couple from Cupple if they choose. Cupple did not disclose current usage figures, downloads or geographical reach. Pair meanwhile notes 1.25M messages sent every day, 160m messages between couples to date and 800K downloads.

by Ingrid Lunden
See full article at Tech Crunch