BIV.COM – July 25 – Last year POF was ordered to pay $48K fine for violating Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) alleged POF was sending emails to members without a proper unsubscribe button.
by Tyler Orton
See full article at BIV.com
SEEKING ALPHA – July 21 – InterActiveCorp now has complete control over the mobile dating app market in English-speaking countries. Meanwhile PlentyOfFish's mobile app is showing strong growth in Brazil, France, and Spain, strengthening IAC's position in these significant markets. Its likely POF's mobile app is generating annual revenues of ~$50 million. Badoo and LOVOO are the largest remaining worldwide competitors, and its likely POF is the #3 competitor worldwide.
SeekingAlpha estimates POF is grossing ~$40k per day, a ~30% yoy revenue growth. Annual revenue on iOS in the USA alone is ~$15 million which would make it ~15% of POF's $100,000,000 revenue. Sources suggest that IAC paid 12.8x EBITDA for POF. Mobile revenue likely comprised half POF's revenue.
by Max Lukenbach
See full article at Seeking Alpha
BIV.COM – July 22 – Markus Frind is staying quiet about what he'll do with the money, but Boris Wertz, founder of Version One Ventures, expects the local tech community to benefit. Frind, however, said he prefers to invest in later-stage companies over Vancouver tech startups. This year he put $21M into Burnaby-based software developer and e-commerce company Cymax. His strategy is to look at deals as they come along.
THE GLOBE AND MAIL – July 14 – Last week Markus Frind cemented his status as one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs, selling POF to Match for $575M. Match has been trying to buy it for a decade, but he never considered selling out until after his daughter Ava was born. "I think he will invest and help a lot of businesses," said Arash Fasihi, founder of Cymax Stores, an online furniture retailer that recently took an $18M investment from Mr. Frind. Frind launched POF in 2003. He grew the business on his own, teaching himself about marketing, business development and product. In 2009, he hired his first developer. By then, he had 10M users. At the core of Plentyoffish was an algorithm that Mr. Frind constantly tweaked that used "behavioural match-making" to predict successful relationships. "Markus is a machine," said fellow entrepreneur Andrew Reid, founder of Vision Critical. "A lot of his success can be attributed to his drive and focus on data and predictive analytics."
THE GLOBE AND MAIL – July 16 – PlentyOfFish notched ~1.85M unique visitors in May, according to data from comScore, making it the most visited dating site in Canada. Match Group sites came in second, at 1.73M unique visitors for the month. Tinder received 670K unique Canadian visitors in May, a 189% rise YOY. Match Group posted visitor growth of 33% YOY. But minus Tinder, it saw a 0.84% decrease in visitors.
See full article at Globe and Mail
VANCOUVER SUN – July 15 – In the interview, Markus Frind shared his story and what the acquisition holds for the future of POF.
MARKETWATCH – July 15 – The Match Group announced that it will buy PlentyofFish for $575M in cash before going public. "In this industry, size really matters," says Mark Brooks, a dating-industry analyst and the editor of Online Personals Watch. "The Match Group gains very sizable key strategic assets and very effectively cements its position as market leader." The US online dating industry is dominated by IAC, with 21.8% market share. While each site has its own secret set of algorithms, the industry is consolidating and becoming more efficient from a business perspective.
"Making ideal matches is a virgin science," Brooks says. "We don't really know when we've been successful, so we don't really know when the algorithm has actually worked." That will soon change with the popularity of location-based apps and mobile technology, he says. "We'll be able to survey singles before and after dates." "Dating algorithms do exactly what they're designed to do, which is to match to sets for data,"” says Amy Webb, author of "Data, a Love Story: How I Gamed Dating to Meet My Match." Some dating sites beg to differ: "eHarmony has only a divorce rate of 3.86%, well below the national average of 40% to 50%."
by Quentin Fottrell
See full article at Marketwatch
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TECH CRUNCH – July 14 – Match Group has agreed to acquire PlentyOfFish (POF) for $575 million in cash and expects to close early in Q4. Tinder flicked the monetization switch this spring. Singles are a core demographic for marketing other types of self-improvement services where Match/IAC also plays.
"As more people than ever use more dating apps than ever with more frequency than ever, PlentyOfFish’s addition both brings new members into our family of products and deepens the lifetime relationship we have with our users across our portfolio," said Sam Yagan, CEO of The Match Group. "I look forward to working closely with Markus and extending the company’s impressive growth trajectory." The acquisition adds 3 million daily actives to IAC’s digital media portfolio of more than 150 brands and 20 operating businesses. Match Group covers ~50 brands in the dating, education and fitness space. IAC reports 370 million unique monthly users and 2.5 billion monthly visits to its entire portfolio.
by Natasha Lomas
See full article at Tech Crunch
Mark Brooks: Recently Markus said he was at a $100 million revenue run rate. Match bought Singlesnet, OKCupid, then Datehookup. So the writing has been on the wall for some time. It was just a matter of price. Tinder showed that Match Group could seed and grow a credible threat to the POF business. It's a good time for Markus to join with Match Group, and cash in his chips.
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GLOBAL NEWS – July 1 – Madonna's latest album was advertised on Grindr, while Jason Derulo looked to Tinder to debut a music video. Carey launched a profile on Match.com to premiere her music video for the single, "Infinity," and last week DJ-producer Afrojack took over Match's Twitter account for eight hours to answer questions about love and relationships while promoting his new single, "SummerThing!". PlentyofFish also worked with Derulo when the website appeared in the music video for his song "Ridin Solo" in 2010. POF also appeared in Britney Spears, Flo Rida and Kesha’s videos.
by Mesfin Fekadu
See full article at Global News
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OPW – June 19 – It seems POF is refocusing its business, and high-end speed dating company Fast Life is no longer part of its plan. Plentyoffish acquired the company 21 months ago. The company operated in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and UK and was unique because of its high price points and offering exceptional venues and service. I think POF had the intention of moving up the value chain, and rounding out its offerings a la Match. Likely this proved to be too much of a diversion. Events are tough. They pull attention. But they can be powerful real-world experience and branding pieces.
If you're planning on acquiring a company as a strategic asset, I generally recommend keeping the team as an autonomous unit. I'll be presenting a special session on innovation at iDate London in October, bottling some of what I learned from Clayton Christensen at HBS, and discussing innovation through acquisition.
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