STOCK MARKETWIRE – Aug 22 - Cupid has taken over several Brazilian online dating sites for a total of $0.75M. The sites include AondeNamoro.com, a traditional online dating site, and SolteirosComFilhos.com, a dating site for single parents. The combined sites have 1.4M members.
Category: Cupid plc (formerly Easydate)
Cupid Wins Over German Online Dating Business
STOCKOPEDIA – June 23 – Cupid has acquired a 75% stake in two German online businesses, OnlineLiebe GmbH and WomenWeb GmbH, for a total of €2.75M (£2.5M). The two companies are run together by the same team in Munich, led by founder Andreas von Maltzan, who is recognised as one of the pioneers and leaders in the German dating market, having established Neu.de, Germany’s most popular dating site, which was sold to Meetic in 2007. OnlineLiebe GmbH owns sites such as Zuckerjungs.de, Zuckerdaddys.de, Gleicheliebe.de and Gayjz.de. Its leading site, Zuckerjungs.de, was founded last year and has already become the market leader in the ‘Cougar’ dating niche in Germany, as well as in Austria and Switzerland. WomenWeb GmbH is Germany's largest online community network of female interest websites with domains such as Womenweb.de, Frauen.de, Kochrezepte.de, Allegraclub.de, Esoteriktreff.de, Hochzeits-club.de and eight other portals. Bill Dobbie, Cupid’s CEO, said: “This acquisition continues our stated strategy of international expansion and is an excellent opportunity for us to gain a foothold in the German-speaking markets.
Cupid Ahead of Market Forecasts
STOCK MARKET WIRE – May 25 - Online dating company Cupid is trading strongly and ahead of market expectations. Monthly revenues now exceed £4M and continue to grow. Cupid says North America is performing exceptionally well and ahead of plan and the UK's performance remains strong.
Cupid White Labels Now Have Cupid Logo on Site
OPW – May 24 – A couple of days ago we added 'powered by Courtland Brooks' on the top right of Online Personals Watch and added the Courtland Brooks logo. OPW is one of numerous services we offer to the dating industry. Seems like the idea is catching on. Cupid announced today that they are pushing a 'powered by Cupid' logo onto their white labels. Here's their changes to their T&C's. In the past they linked to Cupid/EasyDate, but now they're adding the logo of the baby as well. (Full Disclosure: I was VP at Cupid in 2004)
Cupid Placings Raise £12m
STOCKMARKET WIRE – Apr 11 – Cupid has raised £12M through a placing of ordinary shares with new and existing institutional investors. Cupid said £5M was raised via a placing of ~4.5M new ordinary shares and £7M through a placing of ~6.4M existing ordinary shares held by founders Bill Dobbie and Max Polyakov (through Opalta Limited) all at 110p a piece. Following the placing, CEO Dobbie and business development director Polyakov will hold 24,7% and 23.1% respectively of the enlarged issued share capital.
Cupid Hits 7 Million User Mark On Facebook
PR WEB – Mar 23 – Max Polyakov from Cupid plc said; “What is of key importance to any online dating company is that they need to innovate. They also need to give their members new ways to meet people. Our presence on facebook ticks all of these boxes, so it’s a win win for us and our members”. In the first week of March, Cupid was positioned at no. 3 in facebook’s ‘Top Gainers’ chart, with ~600K new users in one week. Cupid plc also has the BeNaughty dating app, which has 1,494,470 monthly active users as well as others including GirlsDateforFree with over 650K monthly users and Flirt with 1,278,000 monthly users. Cupid’s portfolio of Facebook apps boasts over 7M monthly active users.
Cupid Revenues Up 202% At £25.7M
STOCK MARKET WIRE – Mar 8 – Cupid's revenues rose 202% to £25.7M in the year to the end of December. Organic UK revenues were up by 101% to £15.1M and the firm said international expansion continued with 42% of fourth quarter revenues from outside the UK.
Cupid Takes Over IndianDating.com
STOCK MARKET WIRE – Feb 14 – Online dating company Cupid has taken over IndianDating.com and several related domains for $200,000. IndianDating.com's activity is mainly focussed on the Indian community in North America. The sites have ~600K dating and matrimonial site members with the potential for significant expansion. According to the American Community Survey of the US Census Bureau, the Asian Indian population in the US was 2,570,000 in 2007 and had grown at 53% since 2000.
The full article was originally published at Stock Market Wire, but is no longer available.
Match Point For Internet Dating Sites
SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY – Feb 13 – According to Experian Hitwise, the UK's most popular dating site is PlentyofFish, whose founder last week accused an alleged hacker of trying to extort money from PlentyofFish. Globally, PlentyofFish has ~28N users, so last week's supposed theft amounts to only the tiniest fraction of the site's total population. However, this is an industry where trust is paramount. Bill Dobbie, CEO Cupid, says: "I am investigating how we can inject more trust into our websites," referring to the technical security issues that are coming into increasing focus throughout the industry. Cupid covers a string of niche sites such as Flirt.com, Cupid.com, PlanetSappho.com and BeNaughty.com, and has more than 9M members in 29 countries. BeNaughty is the UK's 8th most popular site, accounting for 2.62% of all visits in this category. PlentyOfFish has a 19.27%t share, followed by Match.com on 7.82% and Gaydar on 6.4%. Such figures, however, do not reflect a site's "success rate" in pairing up happy new couples. FULL ARTICLE @ SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY
See all posts on Plentyoffish See all posts on Cupid plc
See all posts on Match.com See all posts on Gaydar
EasyDate Buys Flirt.com
BBC.CO.UK – Dec 16 – EasyDate has bought the domain flirt.com for £800,000. EasyDate has been using the flirt.com brand since August under an agreement with Belamo, the American company that registered it. Since starting to use the flirt.com domain – calling it "the naughtiest singles community by far" – it has taken 3 months to reach revenue, last month, of £250K. FULL ARTICLE @ BBC