REUTERS – Sep 24 – Cupid PLC was hit by higher marketing and administrative costs. Adjusted pretax loss for the six months ended June 30 was £2.5M ($4M), from a profit of £3.5M a year earlier. Revenue rose 12.4% to £43.4M. Marketing spend increased 18% to £27.4M. Administrative expenses rose ~60% to £4M. Cupid said it expects continuing business to return to growth and profitability in 2014.
Category: Cupid plc (formerly Easydate)
Quickie Interview: Phil Gripton, CEO Of Cupid.com
OPW INTERVIEW – Sep 19 – iDate Cologne was Phil’s first Internet Dating Conference.
The Algorithms Behind Online Dating
FT – Sep 9 – 1/3 of people who married between 2005-2012 met their spouse online, up from 19% 5 years earlier. 5.3M Britons use internet dating according comScore. Matching someone with their perfect partner is a matter of processing enormous amounts of information. Cupid's 20M active users may have up to 100 characteristics associated with them. That comes to ~20M characteristics. "Finding love is one of the hardest things to reduce to a formula, but with vast stores of data and complex algorithms that allow them to be processed fast, online dating companies such as Cupid are getting close to turning it into a science." - Maija Palmer
TheDatingStudio.com – Termination Of White Label Dating Services
Mark Brooks: Our client, Dating Factory is our recommended option for orphaned Cupid white label partners. They're as solid as a rock and growing, and the technology, reporting and rev shares are first rate.
Concerns Raised Over Web Dating ‘Fake Profiles’
BBC.CO.UK – July 26 – A BBC investigation has found that fake profiles are apparently being used to encourage people to pay a subscription to Cupid Plc. Earlier this year the company hired auditors after users told a BBC 5 live investigation they had lots of messages when they signed up to the sites as free users, but when they paid up, interest rapidly tailed off. Cupid commissioned KPMG to look at working practices. The report found that "scammers" were a problem but said there was no evidence of "a Company organised" use of fake profiles. But the BBC has been contacted by Cupid daters, complaining of disappearing messages and fake profiles. The programme team created a profile of a man called James from Glasgow, to see how many of the people who approached "James" were real. "James" profile was matched with Kaz B. However, Kaz B is Karen Bartke, a Scottish actress, who never signed up for Cupid's sites. These profiles did not appear to be the work of scammers. The bulk of Cupid plc's work is done in Ukraine, where journalist Svitlana Tuchynska from the Kyiv Post newspaper went undercover. She applied for a job as a motivation manager. She said: "I was told the job is to communicate with customers on the sites. Cupid described Ms Tuchynska's allegations as "wholly incorrect".
Cupid Falls Out Of Love With Commercial Director
PROACTIVE INVESTORS – July 19 – Cupid waved goodbye to commercial director Mark Doughty after dumping its casual dating business. Doughty handed over the role of CFO to Niall Stirling in December as it expanded its board and his new job was to grow the company internationally.
Cupid Sells Casual Dating Sites For £43 Million
INDEPENDENT – 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
See all posts on Cupid plc
See all posts on BeNaughty
See all posts on Flirt.com
This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Cupid Cleared Over ‘Fake Profiles’
THE INDEPENDENT – July 1 – Online dating group Cupid was today cleared of using fake profiles to lure new members but warned it needs to overhaul its operations. The Company said a review by KPMG found there was “no evidence” its staff were misleading registered members into becoming fully paid subscribers. However, KPMG said Cupid’s staff needed to identify themselves more clearly to customers in the future because their current methods “could potentially lead to confusion”. Cupid was also told to sharpen up its marketing, governance, technical controls and risk management. Cupid said: “The board is pleased to have concluded this review and will continue to innovate and enhance the customer experience, whilst taking steps to ensure its recommendations are implemented and policies and procedures and best practice are complied with.” Shares in the company rose by more than 6% on the back of the findings of the probe, which took KPMG two months to complete.
by Jamie Dunkley
See full article at The Independent
Cupid Gets Approached For Casual Dating Sites
REUTERS – June 20 – Cupid said it has been approached by multiple parties for its casual dating sites and added that it expects core earnings for the first half to be hit by higher marketing costs. Cupid was in talks to sell its casual dating business that operates benaughty.com and flirt.com. EBIDTA for the six months ending June 30 is estimated to be ~2.5M pounds ($3.9M).
Cupid In Talks On Website Sale
REUTERS – May 28 – Cupid forecast a sharp fall in half-year earnings and said it was in talks about selling part of its business. It forecast core earnings of 2.5M pounds compared to the 5.9M in the same period last year. Cupid in March rejected media allegations about methods it used to encourage people to buy subscriptions as "misrepresentation and ill-informed speculation". Cupid, whose website says it has ~54M user accounts in 58 countries, said a strong performance in its Uniform Dating and Paris-based AGL brands meant half-year revenues would be 13% higher than last year.
by Sarah Young
See full article at Reuters