PR WEB — June 12 — Zoosk, a dating application built for social networks, has completed its second round of funding, raising $4.1m. The round was led by Canaan Partners and included ATA Ventures. Zoosk will use the funds to expand its marketing efforts, increase its subscriber base across additional social networks and develop compelling new features for its network. Zoosk integrates with social networks including Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. FULL ARTICLE @ PR WEB
Category: Hot Stories
WooMe Raises Funding
PRESS RELEASE — June 12 — WooMe, the online video speed-dating service, raised a $12,5m round led by Index Ventures with existing investors Atomico and Mangrove Capital Partners also participating. The new capital will go toward supporting user growth, expanding internationally and introducing new functionality to the site.
The full article was originally published at Earth Times, but is no longer available.
Avoid Online Rejection, Get Your Friends Involved
TECH CRUNCH — Apr 10 — Engage differentiates itself from traditional
dating sites by getting friends involved in the process
of finding that perfect match. These friends are there to help break
the ice and determine
who's worth the time. They can suggest people or write recommendations
and introductory notes. Engage raised $5M in Series A from Advanced
Tech Ventures in 2006.
The site will remain free until Q4 2008, at which point it will cost
around $20/mo. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Legislator Wants Background Checks In Florida
TAMPA BAY — Apr 7 — Rep. Kevin Ambler wants to pass a bill (HB 411) requiring dating sites to do a criminal background checks — or disclose that they don't — when dealing with paying Florida customers. The sites also would have to describe how the checks were done, that the checks are incomplete, and provide safety tips. However, industry lobbyists and critical lawmakers say that imperfections in searching criminal records still will give hopeful singles false confidence. The bill could raise costs for companies and customers. New Jersey made itself the first state to require the disclosure this year. Match.com says promising the background checks and disclosure is misleading. Lobbyists said the bill totally ignores a greater risk, the wide array of free social networking sites. Jennifer Green, a Match.com lobbyist, told a House committee on March 19 that the company has 1-million users, but only 60,000 paid members who would fall under the law. Green said Match.com would be fine with legislation that requires safety warnings but that the company finds the criminal check requirement off-point.
The full article was originally published at Tampa Bay News, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Criminal checks are a differentiator for next generation dating sites. This legislation calls for dating sites to post a prominent warning on their site if they don't do background checks. I think the average dating site user wouldn't expect a dating site to offer background checks by default. I doubt they would all pay an additional $20 for a check, either. Your comments please.
Iovation Secures $15M
RED HERRING — Mar 27 — Fraud protection service firm Iovation capped a $15m funding round with a $5m investment from SAP Ventures and European Founders. The initial $10m investment was made by Intel Capital. iovation markets a hosted service which tracks and identifies the devices used by people to commit online fraud on commercial sites or to harass users of social networking and dating sites. The company also creates a database of suspect devices gleaned from each of its customers which is then shared among all of Iovation's customers.
The full article was originally published at Red Herring, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: Wow! This is one of the biggest votes of confidence I've ever seen. I'm proud to have iovation as a client (of Courtland Brooks), and a sponsor of Online Personals Watch and Social Networking Watch. If you would like to wipe out scamming activity on your dating or social networking site, iovation is the way to go. You can email me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com to schedule a 45 minute introductory demo of iovation's dating and SNS products.
HotOrNot Acquired For $20 Million
TECH CRUNCH — Feb 11 — San Francisco based HotOrNot, founded by James Hong and Jim Young in October 2000, has been acquired. The buyers are investors connected with Avid Life Media, and paid somewhere around $20 million for the site. Their annual revenue is estimated to be around $5 million, with $2 million in profit. According to Comscore, the site has around 5 million monthly unique visitors and 200 million page views. The investors are creating a new company, called HotOrNot Media, and they may be acquiring more properties as well. FULL ARTICLE @ TECH CRUNCH
Cupid.com And RegionalHelpWanted Acquired For $100 Million
MASHABLE — Feb 11 — RegionalHelpWanted.com was purchased by onTargetjobs, a portfolio company of Warburg pincus. The financial terms weren't explicitly disclosed, but according to PE Hub, Classified Intelligence "pegs the figure at $100 million". RegionalHelpWanted is also the company behind the telephone and online dating service Cupid.com, another recognizable brand name. The RegionalHelpWanted portfolio will join the onTarget portfolio that includes other sites like BioSpace.com, Hcareers.com, HEALTHeCAREERS.com, MedHunters.com, JobLoft.com and CareerBank.com. FULL ARTICLE @ MASHABLE
Mark Brooks: Cupid and RHW are promoted on remnant radio advertising usually at second tier radio stations around the country. What's unusual is that the payouts are on a CPA basis to radio stations. onTargetjobs has picked up a unique marketing channel.
WooMe Woos Another $3 Million
NEWTEEVE — Feb 7 — Online speed dating site WooMe received a $3 million bridge round of financing led by Mangrove, along with previous investors Atomico, Klaus Hammels and newcomer Oliver Jung. This builds on the initial $1.9 million in seed funding WooMe previously raised. The service launched 10 weeks ago and according to Co-founder and CEO, Stephen Stokols, WooMe has facilitated more than 35,000 sessions so far.
The full article was originally published at NewTeeve, but is no longer available.
BharatMatrimony Raises $11.75m
PRESS RELEASE — Feb 6 — Consim, formerly known as BharatMatrimony, has closed its second round of investment of USD $ 11.75 million led by Mayfield Fund and participation from existing investors, Yahoo! and Canaan Partners. Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder & CEO, Consim Info, said, "We plan to leverage this fund to expand our matrimony business in the international markets and to strengthen our other classifieds offerings. We believe that the global knowledge and experience of our investors will help us scale our business strategically."
The full article was originally published at Tech Whack, but is no longer available.
Mark Brooks: BharatMatrimony competes head on with Shaadi in India for matrimonials dating.
SpeedDate.com Secures Patent
BUSINESS WIRE — Dec 19 — SpeedDate.com secured an exclusive license to U.S. Patent Number 7,203,674 covering key aspects of online speed dating. SpeedDate.com, launched in October 2007 and has hosted over 100,000 online speed dates internationally. SpeedDate.com is also bringing speed dating to social platforms such as meebo. "SpeedDate.com is all about connecting people live, making it a natural partner for meebo", said Seth Sternberg, CEO of Meebo. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WIRE
Mark Brooks: The patent is entitled Method and system to connect and match users in an electronic dating service. Details here. The patent appears to cover the major components of online speed dating. 'Immediate Dating, Invited Dating, Group Dating', along with the telephony involved in online speed dating. Any lawyers care to comment? Will this stand up? There are a few instances of online speed dating being attempted in the past. Match gave it a good shot in 2004. Surely there's some prior art that could undermine this patent?