NEWSCENTER – Aug 16 – East Meet East is an online dating service for English-speaking Asian singles living in the U.S. The app has just raised $3.2M from an undisclosed investor.
See full article at NewsCenter
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DEAL STREET ASIA – Aug 15 – US-based video streaming dating app Whispers Live is looking to raise ~$30-45M through an initial coin offering (ICO). Whispers, which is in beta mode, said it will offer 10-15% of its 1B digital coins, called RoseCoin, each at 0.001 Ethereum, which is currently priced at $300. The transaction is expected to take place on September 9, 2017. Whispers aims to expand to North America and Australia in the Q1 2018, then Southeast Asia and Africa in the next quarter.
by Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc
See full article at Deal Street Asia
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TECH IN ASIA – Aug 3 – M17, an entity that includes Singaporean dating app Paktor, has raised $40M. M17 has an in-house team producing entertainment content spanning music, commentary, and reality television shows, and aims to be an interactive multimedia platform. The company scouts for original content creators like livestreamers, music producers, and celebrities.
by Malavika Velyanikal
The full article was originally published at Tech in Asia, but is no longer available.
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DEAL STREET ASIA – June 9 – The dating app, often reffered as Chinese Tinder, raised $70M in series D funding. The round was lead by Chinese online social entertainment firm YY. Tantan was founded in 2014 and it's target group are young professionals living in smaller cities. It currently claims 13M registered users and 2.5M DAU. So far, it raised $32M in series C, $13M in series B and $5M in series A.
by Thomas S. Noda III
See full article at Deal Street Asia
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TECH CRUNCH – May 12 – Startup Truepic has raised $1.75M seed funding to become the "the world's first digital photo notary". Truepic's patented technology verifies uploaded photos that they were not edited, and watermarks it with a time stamp, geocode, and other metadata. Truepic's SDK can be embedded in other products plus its own consumer app, and can be used on dating sites, Airbnb or eBay. Clients can pay a monthly fee to build Truepic's SDK into their apps so the whole process happens within their product.
by Kaitlyn Tiffany
See full article at The Verge
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FORBES – May 4 – Dil Mil dating app aims to combine traditional South Asian values with modern technology. It uses AI and predictive analytics. Founded in 2014, Dil Mil offers a middle ground for South Asians who aren't looking for either hookups or arranged marriages. Traditionally, "aunties," either familial or friends of the family, played the role of matchmaker in South Asian countries. But with Dil Mil, the matchmaking process is taking place on the app – kind of like a "virtual" auntie. Dhaliwal and Toor worked together to build the app and website. The duo have raised ~$4M in pre-Series A funding and have been backed by celebrity investors such as 500 Startups, Will Bunker of Match.com and Scott Banister of PayPal.
TECH CRUNCH – Apr 26 – Dating app Paktor, 'The Tinder of Southeast Asia,' is moving into live-streaming and media content after it announced a merger deal with Taiwanese startup 17 Media. Paktor currently offers four dating apps – core service Paktor and acquired apps Down, Kickoff and Goodnight – while 17 Media's runs its 17 live-streaming app, photo social network Swag and video group chat service Lit. The new entity is expecting ~$100M in annual revenue and 50M users. The list of established companies moving into streaming is nearly endless. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Momo, and fast-growing Kuaishou among others.
by Jon Russell
See full article at Tech Crunch
Update: M17 has raised an undisclosed amount in investment from Korean VC firm KTB Network as part of a larger round, which is due to close in a few weeks.
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DENVER BUSINESS JOURNAL – Apr 19 – A Denver online dating firm MeetMindful, which tries to match people based on likes such as spirituality, volunteering, green living and meditation, raised $1.8M in funding. The funding came from: Bridge Builders Collaborative; Paul Tarell, CFO of Gaia; Reid Tracy, CEO of Hay House; Tara Brach, "mindfulness teacher;" Nelstone Ventures; and Techstars.
by Ben Miller
See full article at Denver Business Journal
Mark Brooks: We interviewed MeetMindful CEO Amy Baglan last week.
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OPW INTERVIEW – Apr 11 – Here’s Amy Baglan. She’s doing a great job with MeetMindful. Apparently she raised more money than we thought. Watch the video to learn the correct amount, and what’s next for MeetMindful.
Post by Mark Brooks @ Courtland Brooks.