BLOOMBERG – Nov 24 – AppYou is a new German-based dating app. It was developed by http://www.singletreffen.de and already has ~500K registered users. AppYou is targeting people 30+ and, unlike Tinder, doesn't require Facebook account.
The full article was originally published at PressePortal.de, but is no longer available.
BBC.COM – Oct 26 – Online dating fraudsters conned victims out of ~£33M in the last year, the UK's national fraud centre says. Action Fraud said 3,543 people reported falling victim to dating scams in 2014-15. It said dating sites "very rarely" vet members to prevent fraud.
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by Markus Trantow
See full article at Turi2.de (in German)
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FT.COM – Oct 20 – With a €5B market cap, Rocket is Europe's most valuable technology company. Investors' faith in Rocket is built on the idea of replicating successful Internet businesses, and set them up in new markets. (eDarling – clone of eHarmony). Rocket was launched in 2007, and has grown to employ 30k people. The company went public a year ago (the €6.7B IPO was the largest in Germany since 2007), and attracted funds from high-profile names. It reported loss €46M this year. Rocket owns hundreds of shell companies, as well as minority stakes in businesses that are not consolidated into the parent. Mr Samwer, Rocket's founder and CEO, acknowledges the complexity but suggests it reflects the nature of the business. Since the listing, Rocket has raised ~€600M in February and €550M in July.
by Sarah Gordon & Dan McCrum
See full article at Financial Times
PRESS RELEASE – Oct 14 – Jeronimo Folgueira will become new CEO of Affinitas GmbH. He will lead Affinitas together with Michael Schrezenmaier, who joined the company in Sep 2012 and has been a Managing Director of it since May 2013. The two founders Lukas Brosseder and David Khalil will continue to support the company operatively until early 2016. Thereafter they will stay closely affiliated as shareholders of Affinitas. Brosseder and Khalil founded the company in Nov 2008. Affinitas goal is to have ~60M Eur in revenue in 2015.
ONLINE POST – Sep 24 – Teazr has received 1.5M kroner ($225K) to market the app in the US, which has been the goal of the three founders – Daniel Delouya, Umar Akram and Simon Degn – from the start. Teazr is similar to Tinder but users must take and send a selfie when they get a match before they can chat together. Teazr launched on the Danish market in June this year, and so far ~15K users have downloaded the app.
by Lucie Rychla
See full article at Online Post
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SABEMOSDIGITAL – Sep 22 – IAC has decided that they can manage the Spanish business from France, and laid off most of Meetic's staff in Spain. This will also affect Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands, which will also be controlled from Paris, and the Nordic countries, which will be led from UK. Meetic laid off more than 10 people including the country manager Jose Ruano, and marketing director, Miguel Javier Mangas. The remaining staff (rumored to be just 3 people) moved into a smaller office.
by Miguel Ángel Uriondo
The full article was originally published at Sabemos Digital, but is no longer available.
THELOCAL.DE – Sep 18 – The Dresden-based dating app Lovoo tricks users by creating fake female profiles to tempt men into paying, a technology magazine C'T has claimed. Lovoo is free but users can pay for premium services. Lovoo, which has 36M users in 17 countries has rejected the accusation.
NY MAGAZINE – Sep 16 – A Swedish dating site called 7Heaven only allows profile photos that are less than 6 hours old. It can check timestamps.
WASHINGTON TIMES – Sep 4 – Members of UK Match.com were warned by security experts about a virus from an add on Match.com's UK portal. The add contained code that can let hackers to take control of a victim’s computer and hold it for ransom. Match temporarily suspended advertising on its U.K. site.