PR WEB – Jan 10 – London dating site Lovestruck.com has raised £285,000
in Series A funding. Lovestruck.com matches single professionals to
others who work close by for coffee, lunch or after-work drinks. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
Category: All Investment Raises
Zoosk Secures $30 Million In Series D Funding
PR NEWSWIRE – Dec 3 – Zoosk, the social dating community, has closed a $30M Series D round of funding. The round was led by new investor Bessemer Venture Partners, the oldest venture capital firm in the United States. Existing investors Canaan Partners and ATA Ventures also participated. Since its launch in December 2007, Zoosk has attracted~40M singles. Singles can join Zoosk via their social network by adding the Zoosk application on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Hi5, and Friendster.
The full article was originally published at PR Newswire, but is no longer available.
Internet Dating Industry Weekly News Oct 23rd, 2009 – 3.5 mins
This is the news for October 18th through October 23rd, 2009. Here are some of the topics we covered for this week:
- People Media ranked on Deloitte’s prestigious Technology Fast 500 list
- Zoosk’s member base surpasses 40 million users
- Newly-launched eLove.com fuses online dating and traditional matchmaking
- AARP partners with Perfectmach relationship expert Dr. Pepper Schwartz
- Australia’s Cupid Media rejecting 3,000 profiles a day due to fraud suspicions
Thread.com Raises $1.2 Million For Facebook-Powered Matchmaking Service
TECH CRUNCH — Sep 1 – Thread.com, a startup formerly known as Frintro, has closed a $1.2M funding round led by some of Silicon Valley’s most well known investors. Included in the round are First Round Capital, Sequoia Capital, Founders Fund, fbFund, and a number of independent investors, including Ron Conway, David Sacks, Auren Hoffman, Pedro Miguel Martins, Reid Hoffman, Joe Greenstein, Saran Chari, and Shervin Pishevar. Thread.com uses Facebook Connect to look up information about your friends and friends of your friends. Depending on your connection to each match you’ll be able to see things like their current relationship status, location, interests, profile photos, and photo albums. Thread.com makes it easy to simply message a member through Facebook, but CEO Brian Phillips says that the best way to spark a relationship is that you ask your friends to introduce you. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Ten Announces 40% Stake In Oasis Active
ASIAMEDIA JOURNAL — Sep 1 – Network Ten is investing in free
Australian dating site Oasis Active. Network Ten currently holds just
under 40% of Oasis Active, with the remainder held by private
investors. Oasis Active commenced operation in April 2008 and its
international network of users is ~998,000, with average monthly growth
of 15% or more than 80,000 users. Oasis Active was developed and is
managed by 3H Group. 3H Group was founded by CEO Dave Heysen and CTO
Daniel Haigh. Mr Haigh previously established one of the largest
international online dating websites, Soulmates Technology, which was
acquired by match.com. FULL ARTICLE @ ASIAMEDIA JOURNAL
Virtual Goods Funding Tops $69 Million
CNET NEWS — June 14 – Start-ups peddling virtual goods raised $69m in funding in the first quarter of 2009.
First quarter 2009 financings:
* IMVU – $10,000,000
* ngmoco – $10,000,000
* Nurien – $10,000,000
* Offerpal Media – $15,000,000
* Ohai – $6,000,000
* OMGPOP – $5,000,000
* OneSeason.com – $3,500,000
* Scrapblog – $4,000,000
* Viximo – $5,000,000
* Three Melons – $600,000
The full article was originally published at CNet, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Viximo is helping iDating and social networking companies capitalize on virtual goods, and are a sponsor of Online Personals Watch and Social Networking Watch.
Zoosk Raises $6 Million
REUTERS — June 12 – Online dating network Zoosk has raised $6m in a third round. The company raised $4m in a second round last June.
The full article was originally published at Reuters, but is no longer available.
Viximo Repositions As Content Provider With New CEO And $5M In Funding
VIRTUAL WORLD NEWS — Apr 29 – Viximo has restructured, with some employees let go last month and former CEO Rob Frasca replaced by Dayna Grayson (of Viximo investor North Bridge Venture Partners) as acting CEO. Viximo closed a new round $5m round of funding from North Bridge and Sigma. Perhaps most importantly, the company is refocusing itself around a new virtual goods strategy: providing content for partners to sell.
The full article was originally published at Virtual World News, but is no longer available.
be2 Raises €15 Million
PRESS RELEASE — Nov 12 — be2,
a global matchmaking site with more than 12m members in 34 countries,
received an investment of €15m from the Index Ventures growth fund. be2
will use the capital to further international expansion and increase
its user base in existing markets.
Mark Brooks: Keep your eyes on this company. One to watch. 😉
SpeedDate.com Celebrates Successful First Year
MARKETWATCH — Oct 20 — Since launching in October 2007, speeddate.com raised over $8m in VC funding and hosted 18m online dates. SpeedDate.com allows singles to meet each other through 3-minute online speed dates using webcams, audio, and IM. SpeedDate is also available as an application on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, and meebo.
The full article was originally published at MarketWatch, but is no longer available.