LA TERCERA – Mar 28 - Match.com launched 20 years ago. In 1995, there were only 16 dating services. Today there are 8K dating sites and apps. "Everyone knows someone who has been successful on a dating site. Online dating has been accepted by the society as something that works", says Mark Brooks, consultant and expert in the online dating business.
Match.com launched in Chile in 2005. 5 years later, the site claimed 500K registered users. Today, the number is 1.3M. Match.com was not the only company that saw the potential in Chile. German based dating site eDarling followed in 2011. "The growth rate is higher than most EU countries", said Sara Grana, country manager of eDarling Chile.
"People don't really know what they want and they don't describe themselves accurately", says Mark Brooks. Reliance on profiles is one of the main criticisms of scientists towards online dating algorithms. Eli Finkel, professor of social psychology at Northwestern University, published an analysis. He says that there is no certainty that these algorithms work. He adds that key aspects of relationships, such as communication patterns and sexual compatibility, arise only after two people meet.
by José Miguel Jaque & Noelia Zunino The full article was originally published at La Tercera, but is no longer available.
BUSINESS INSIDER – Aug 14 – Rocket Internet is one of the most successful and controversial startup incubators in the world. Last week, the Berlin-based startup accelerator raised $445M at a $4.5B valuation. And it’s reported to be shooting for an IPO soon, with hopes of reaching a valuation as high as $6.7B. Rocket Internet's strategy is to copy ideas that work in certain markets and build the same exact business model in regions that haven’t yet been explored. It launched eDarling in 2008, a copy-cat of eHarmony. The site now operates in 20-plus countries. eHarmony was a 30% shareholder until 2013. eDarling focused on mostly non-English-speaking countries, but have announced plans to expand to the U.K. and Ireland recently.
W&V – Feb 10 – The Federal Association of the Digital Economy (BVDW) has agreed on rules for dating sites. The "SPIN Kodex" defines clear rules related to cancellations policy, recurring payments and privacy issues. The first companies that have been certified are FriendScout24, Neu.de, eDarling.de, Shopaman.de, secret.de and partner.de. Companies wishing to submit to the SPIN Kodex have to go through an extensive auditing with numerous documentation requirements. This process has to be completed again in two years.
OPW INTERVIEW – Aug 13 – eDarling recently pared away from eHarmony and is independent again, and ready to compete internationally. eDarling launched in the UK recently and is now open for business in 22 countries. Here’s their founding story, from Affinitas co-founder Lukas Brosseder. – Mark Brooks
This is our first interview with eDarling. What’s your founding story? David Khalil and myself founded the company in November 2008. In Europe, we didn't see a true matchmaking company. Here, it was always a combination of a dating site and a personality questionnaire, but not a true matchmaking service, and existing players weren’t very innovative. None of the matchmaking sites such as Parship in Germany and eHarmony in the U.S. were able to go international. We believed that this was possible, and that was our idea. In May 2009, 6 months after the launch in Germany, we were live in 4 other countries.
Would you say that your product and philosophy is different from the likes of Parship and eHarmony? What distinguishes us is a very true matchmaking system. We are focusing on delivering very good matches. You only get 7 initial matches when you finish our relationship questionnaire. We pride ourselves in the quality of the matches, and the communications.
eHarmony has been a big part of us for a very long time, and we have grown together in a lot of ways. Initially, they were one of our biggest heroes. Our matchmaking system is very different from the eHarmony system.
Let's talk about matchmaking then. What is your philosophy; what kind of basis do you focus on for the matchmaking? All the other larger competitors’ matchmaking is based on the big five model. We truly believe in compatibility and being matched based on having similar interests and personality traits. We have several innovative algorithms implemented that understandably I can not talk about in detail. A big part of the secret sauce are the users on the site, and here we pride ourselves on having a high educated, extremely dedicated user base. I think that also is a big part of our success.
Recently you parted ways with eHarmony. Could you give us some more insight on why, and what happened? We parted on very good terms on either side. I think the main reason for the parting was Dr. Neil Clark Warren’s strategy to decrease eHarmony’s international footprint. We wanted to grow internationally. It was a good way and good timing for everyone to take different routes and to take different strategies.
How many countries are you in now? We launched in UK and Ireland just a couple weeks ago, and now we're in 22 countries.
Congratulations on entering UK and Ireland. How did that go, and how did you seed into those countries from scratch? We have done this 20 times before. We know how to grow business internationally. With UK and Ireland, it was the same set up as it was with Hungary, Finland, Denmark, and Slovakia, which all were launched at the beginning of this year. We make the site free and spend significant 5-digit marketing budgets per day to build up a user base. When we have a user base and also activity on the platform that is sufficient, we start to charge.
What is eDarling going to look like in a year or so's time? We will grow further international. We just launched in Ireland and UK which is the largest dating market in Europe. So there are a lot of things to do. We won't rule out launching in more countries in Europe. We also see opportunities in South America.
VENTURE VILLAGE – July 11 – Shortly after eDarling bought back its shares from eHarmony (May 2013) comes the news that the German company will be expanding to the UK and Ireland. Until now, the dating service had avoided expanding to areas where eHarmony was already active. The new UK and Irish versions of the company will be called “EliteSingles”, similar to Hamburg-based service ElitePartner. Both dating sites connect singles that have certain academic qualifications. eDarling is keen to move forward under the generic Affinitas brand, which explains the new name for the UK and Irish branches. eDarling is planning on funding it via its own operative cash flow.
The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.
VENTURE VILLAGE – May 13 – German dating site eDarling, which last week bought back its shares from US partner eHarmony, has lost its Managing Director, Christian Vollmann. Vollmann will, however, remain on as an investor in the company and also likely as an advisor. The investors in eDarling all contributed to buying back the company from eHarmony, including founders David Khailil and Lukas Brosseder along with Rocket Internet and Holtzbrinck Ventures. The exact reasons behind the buy-back remain unclear.
The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.
VENTURE VILLAGE – May 8 – A two-year affair between eDarling and eHarmony is over. eHarmony purchased a 30% stake in eDarling with an option to buy the rest if all went well. Now that offer is off the table and eDarling has bought back its shares from eHarmony. Rumours put the cost of the buyback at $30M with talk it will be followed by an eDarling launch in the UK. The company behind eDarling, Affinitas, reported a €9.2M loss for 2011, an improvement on the €13.6M loss it reported for 2010. In May last year, it said it expected slightly positive EBITDA on a boosted €50M turnover for 2012. It’s unclear who led the break-up – but it seems both firms were more than ready for a refresh in strategy.
The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.
VENTURE VILLAGE – Nov 28 – eDarling just opened a physical shopfront. The company went live in 2009 as a clone of eHarmony and now claims 13M users across 16 markets, most recently Chile and Mexico. It expects to break even for the first time this year. The new space in West Berlin will house trained consultants offering two levels of support. Basic customer service will be free. A premium service will pair customers with a personal matchmaker, who will search for possible matches, suggest them to the client and even make first contact. The test run in Berlin will prove whether it’s worth opening similar spaces in other cities or countries.
The full article was originally published at Venture Village, but is no longer available.
IDATE – Aug 2 – Christian Vollmann, Managing Director at eDarling will cover the new code of conduct the 4 major players in the German dating industry have initiated. The iDate event will be on September 10-11 in Koln, Germany. eDarling is a matchmaking service for singles who are looking for a long-term relationship.
LA TERCERA – Mar 28 - Match.com launched 20 years ago. In 1995, there were only 16 dating services. Today there are 8K dating sites and apps. "Everyone knows someone who has been successful on a dating site. Online dating has been accepted by the society as something that works", says Mark Brooks, consultant and expert in the online dating business.
