ElitePartner – Page 2 – Online Personals Watch

The Meet Group to Be Acquired by NuCom for $500m

Posted on March 5, 2020

BUSINESSWIRE – Mar 5 – The Meet Group shareholders will receive $6.30 per share in cash. The deal is expected to close in the 2nd half 2020. NuCom Group is a joint company owned by of ProSiebenSat.1 and General Atlantic's. NuCom's portfolio, under Parship Group, currently includes Parship, Elite Partner and eharmony. The purchase price represents a 30% and 43% premium to the unaffected 30 and 60 trading day volume weighted average price.

Geoff Cook, CEO of The Meet Group said. "This transaction will allow us to tap new strategic growth opportunities by leveraging our video platform and ProSiebenSat.1's experience with content and entertainment. What's more, with this transaction and the participation of both General Atlantic and ProSiebenSat.1, we will achieve a new level of financial scale and backing, which has the potential to further accelerate our growth."

Max Conze, CEO, ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE said, "The acquisition of The Meet Group is one of ProSiebenSat.1's largest transactions. It will significantly advance our ambition to create one of the leading global players in online dating and interactive live video. We believe the combination of these two successful and complementary businesses will also create synergies within the ProSiebenSat.1 universe and accelerate the growth of our market share in the German live video apps sector."

Tim Schiffers, CEO Parship Group said: "Following a successful acquisition of eharmony, we have proven that we can manage new businesses and accelerate their growth by combining the best of both worlds."

See full article at Businesswire

Mark Brooks: The Meet Group is a wonderful fit. Great news for the industry. The dating industry is heating up again. (Full Disclosure: The Meet Group are a client of Courtland Brooks, and I own shares)

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

Tim Schiffers, CEO of Parship, About Why eharmony Was a Good Match

Posted on December 6, 2019

PROSIEBENSAT1 – Dec 5 – Parship Group is the leading provider of serious matchmaking services. In addition to the well-known brands Parship and ElitePartner, eharmony has also been part of the Group since 2018. The acquisition of eharmony was a perfect match, said Tim Schiffers, the CEO. eharmony is considered the icon of online dating and established the market in the US back in 2000. By acquiring eharmony, the company is taking another step towards its internationalization. Besides the likewise positioning, there are also similarities regarding the product approach: After the registration process, singles fill in a questionnaire, which then determines specific features of their partnership personality. Based on the results, the matching process is being conducted. For Parship, this process is being achieved along the lines of "as many things in common as possible, as many differences as necessary". In the future, we are going to apply this successful approach to eharmony. The company focus is now on increasing eharmony's attractiveness and relevance for a broader population.

by Tim Schiffers
See full article at ProSiebenSat1 website

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German Group Dating App Go Crush Attracts New Angel Investor

Posted on May 7, 2019

EU STARTUPS – May 6 – Frankfurt-based startup Go Crush is a dating app that allows people to meet in groups. Dr. Jost Schwaner, the ex-CEO of Elitepartner, has just invested a mid-five-figure sum in Go Crush. The team plans to raise another €500K in September, after raising €250K last year. Founded in 2017, Go Crush so far has ~50k registered users in Germany.

by Mary Loritz
See full article at EU Startups

This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.com

Wake-up Call, eHarmony Sold For A Song

Posted on October 30, 2018

OPW – Oct 30 – ProSiebenSat.1 bought eHarmony for $85 million. A real deal. They'll run on a common platform in the future. eHarmony will do roughly $90m revenues, and $0 profit in 2018. Customer lifetime value for eHarmony is $200, whereas Parship is at $570. More info here. Brand recognition for eHarmony stands above Tinder and on par with the likes of Instagram and American Airlines.

See full article at the Courtland Brooks blog.

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Post by Mark Brooks, CEO IDEA

How Much Was eHarmony Sold For?

Posted on October 30, 2018

FINANCIAL TIMES – Oct 30 – ProSiebenSat.1, one of Germany's largest media groups, has agreed to buy US dating site eHarmony as part of its drive to create the world's biggest online matchmaker. ProSieben already owns stake in Parship Elite, a successful German dating business. ProSieben, which will merge eHarmony with Parship Elite did not disclose financial terms of the deal. But one person briefed on the acquisition said it valued eharmony at $85M – making it a surprisingly cheap date compared with rival Match, which has a market value of $13.7B. eHarmony, which raised ~$100M during just one fundraising round 15 years ago, has spent ~$1B on marketing in recent years, according to the person.

by Matthew Garrahan
See full article at Financial Times

Mark Brooks: eHarmony was sold for more than $85 million, that's for sure. Its brand value alone is worth double that. I'd put them at North of $300 million valuation.

UPDATE: Turns out FT's source was right on. eHarmony was indeed sold for $85m, so I need to eat my proverbial hat. Additional commentary on the Courtland Brooks blog.

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the IDEA team

Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 Media (Parship) Acquires eHarmony

Posted on October 29, 2018

REUTERS – Oct 29 – Germany's ProSiebenSat.1 Media has bought eHarmony, in the first significant deal since it carved out a new e-commerce joint venture with General Atlantic. eHarmony expects 2.8 million new users this year, and complements ProSieben's own Parship dating franchise which is the market leader in Germany. Terms were not disclosed. Parship and sister brand Elite Partner, count 2 million registrations a year. eHarmony has brand awareness of nearly 90% and a very big user base that can be served better from a common platform. ProSieben is pushing to diversify away from its core commercial TV franchise, where ad revenues are flat and the sector is being disrupted by streaming platforms like Netflix. The Munich-based broadcaster bought eharmony via its newly created Nucom division, in which investor General Atlantic took a 24.9% stake in February. Nucom owns 94% of Parship. eharmony raised $113 million in two funding rounds. Most recently in 2004, Tuputele Ventures, TCV, Sequoia Capital and Fayez Sarofim & Co. eHarmony CEO Grant Langston will continue to run the business while representatives of Parship will join its board.

by Douglas Busvine & Joern Poltz
See full article at Reuters

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the IDEA team

General Atlantic Buys 25% Of ProSieben’s €1.8B Digital Business

Posted on February 23, 2018

PRIVATE EQUITY NEWS – Feb 22 – U.S. private-equity firm General Atlantic has bought a 25% stake in NuCom Group, the digital business of German media company ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE. The deal valued NuCom at €1.8B, including debt, ProSieben said in a statement. The unit consists of 10 businesses, including online dating site Parship Elite Group and energy price-comparison business Verivox, and generated ~€650M of revenue in 2017. As part of the deal, ProSieben and General Atlantic have bought the minority stakes in Verivox and Parship held by Oakley Capital. The London buyout firm retained minority stakes in both businesses when it sold them to ProSieben in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Parship delivered an nearly five-times return on Oakley's invested capital, while the Verivox investment returned two and a half times its money.

by William Louch
See full article at Private Equity News

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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.

Summarized by the IDEA team

Singles Pay 38Eur/Month For Online Dating In Germany

Posted on February 9, 2018

BUSINESS INSIDER – Feb 9 – A survey of 1K singles by the digital association Bitkom found that 1 in 3 German Internet users searches for a partner online. The most popular are paid services like Parship, eDarling or ElitePartner. On average, they spend ~38 euros per month. In addition, many singles use several apps at the same time: 59 percent of respondents say they use not just one service, but two or more services.

by Hannah Schwär
See full article at Business Insider

Summarized by the IDEA team

NOAH 17 – Interview With Geoff Cook, CEO Of The Meet Group; Tim Schiffers, CEO Of Parship; Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO Of EliteSingles

Posted on November 10, 2017

NOAH CONFERENCE – Nov 10 – CEOs of Parship, EliteSingles and The Meet Group were interviewed at the “Future of online dating” panel during the NOAH17 conference in London. They spoke about the past, present and future of online dating.

Parship – two brands – Parship & ElitePartner that operate in the matchmaking segment, €120M annual revenue (mobile revenue €35M), ~50% of registrations are via mobile, 100k babies

EliteSingles – renamed to Spark Networks, predicted 2018 revenue $122M, EBITDA $22M, 500K paying members

The Meet Group – 15M monthly active users, 4.5M daily active users (DAU), 190K new members every day, acquired Lovoo and Tagged; focus on live video streaming, 20% of DAU use live streaming every day.

Q: Are people on your platform looking for a relationship?
Geoff: Half of Meetme users would say dating, half would say friendship. On Lovoo, ¼ of users say they are looking for entertainment.
Tim: Serious relationship, people go through our questionnaire that takes 30-40 minutes.
Jeronimo: We have very similar product as Parship, our questionnaire also takes 30-40 minutes.

Q: What’s your view on Bumble?
Geoff: It is a great success story. Tinder introduced double swipe to unlock the chat, Bumble amped it up with the female initiating the conversation after double swipe.
Tim: It helps them a lot to be part of Badoo.

Q: How much do you spend on TV ads?
Jeronimo: It is a double-digit million number. 2/3 of our marketing budget goes into offline media, 1/3 goes to online&digital.
Geoff: 70% of our revenue comes from advertising today, that was 85% before Lovoo. We believe live streaming is going to change that. People can send gifts to the streamers. The gifts could be purchased with our virtual currency.

Q: Do you see the younger demographic declining on your platforms because they don’t watch TV with ads?
Tim: No, we have actually seen the biggest influx in the younger demographic (25+)
Jeronimo: We are shifting our advertising from TV to online. We are shifting to where our audience is. So I don’t think shifting away from TV will impact our business.

Q: How global is your business?
Geoff: 80% is international.
Jeronimo: Half North America, half the rest of the world, mostly Europe.
Tim: We are mostly focused on the German-speaking market and we are very comfortable.

Q: What is going to happen in 5 years?
Tim: We will continue with consolidation.
Geoff: I think if you stand still, you’ll die. The competition is big.

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Summarized by the Courtland Brooks team

Spark Networks To Merge With EliteSingles

Posted on May 3, 2017

ACCESSWIRE – May 2 – German dating company Affinitas, which operates premium online dating platforms EliteSingles, eDarling and Attractive World, is merging with Spark Networks. The newly formed company will be named Spark Networks SE and will be headquartered in Berlin, and maintain a significant U.S. presence with offices in New York City and Lehi, Utah. The combination will create a company with ~$115M of pro forma combined revenue over the twelve months. EliteSingles shareholders will own ~75% of Spark Networks SE and Spark shareholders will own 25%. Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of EliteSingles, will serve as CEO and Robert O'Hare, Spark's CFO, will continue in that role with the combined company. Michael Schrezenmaier, Managing Director of EliteSingles, will become COO. The Board of Directors will be comprised of seven directors, including three to be selected by EliteSingles, one to be selected by Spark, and three to be mutually agreed upon by EliteSingles and Spark.