by Georgia Wells
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Category: Reporters – Georgia Wells
Match Group’s Profit Up 41% As Tinder Heats Up
Match Group Files For IPO
WSJ – Oct 16 – Match Group, owner of Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com has filed to go public on Friday. Their shares would be listed on Nasdaq under the symbol MTCH. The preliminary filing indicated Match would raise up to $100 million. Match Group's parent company IAC will retain over 50% of voting rights after the IPO.
The company logged $888.3 million in revenue in 2014, up about 11% from the previous year, according to its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Match's net income for 2014 was $148.4 million, up 18% year over year. All Match's dating properties have more than 59M MAU and approximately 4.7M paid members.
by Georgia Wells & Maria Armental
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This post also appears on InternetDatingInvestments.
Proper Grammar Is Really Hot On Dating Sites
WSJ – Oct 1 - Match.com asked ~5K singles what criteria they used most in assessing dates. Beyond personal hygiene, it was grammar. 88% of women and 75% of men care about grammar most, putting it ahead of a person’s confidence and teeth. The Grade, a new dating app, checks messages for typos and grammar errors and assigns each user a letter grade from A+ to F. One reason people judge grammar and spelling snafus so harshly is that they can reflect the level of effort, or lack thereof, that folks put into their bio. Certain types of typos are also associated with fraud.
by Georgia Wells
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Match Group’s IPO Could Be A Success Story
WSJ – June 25 – IAC/InterActiveCorp has followed through on a long-expected plan to pursue an IPO of Match Group. Mr. Diller, IAC’s chairman, isn’t breaking up with Match Group entirely. The company is planning to sell a stake of less than 20% in the division, which includes fitness and educational businesses. Investors cheered the move, sending IAC’s shares up $3.93, or 5.1%, to $81.19. Match Group is IAC’s strongest growth engine, bringing in 29% of overall revenue in 2014. For all the buzz around dating sites, there hasn’t yet been a significant win for VCs in terms of an IPO, said Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, an adviser to dating companies. That’s been a challenge for entrepreneurs. "We need a success story, and I think the Match Group could be a success story," he said. If the IPO doesn’t go over well with investors, "we can kiss the opportunity of future funding goodbye."
by Georgia Wells & Lukas I. Alpert
See full article at Wall Street Journal
It’s Harder To Turn Profit In The Online Dating Business
WSJ – June 10 – Dating sites in the U.S. are expected to make $1.17B and dating apps $628.8M this year, up from $1.08B and $572M respectively in 2014, according to IBISWorld. “There are too many players and not a lot are generating sufficient revenue,” said Britanny Carter, analyst for IBISWorld. Even major players are under pressure: Zoosk withdrew its plans for an IPO and laid off 15% of its staff. Grindr recently hired investment bank Raine Group to help it find a buyer. But Grindr CEO Joel Simkhai said his service is profitable. Most of the apps that are generating revenue with a combination of ads and freemium features. Users still pay to join some dating sites because it allows them to meet others who have chosen to pay to meet people as well. "It demonstrates a lot of commitment when someone has put a coin on the table," said Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, a company that helps dating companies with business development. eHarmony logged ~$275M in revenue, its highest level in several years.
by Georgia Wells
See full article at WSJ
eHarmony In The Age Of Tinder
WSJ – Mar 16 - eHarmony has reached record subscribers, 778k members and makes 15m matches a day, up from 5m a year ago. Revenues are now over $275m.
Dr. Warren: Under CEO Greg Waldorf users started seeing us like the other dating sites Match and Zoosk, when we’re really a social science site. We’re really, really interested in long-term relationships. Tinder is great for us. …it raises awareness that online dating and matchmaking exists.
Mr. Avedissian: We stopped offering some short-term subscription plans and introduced two-year and longer memberships, since it takes more than one to three months to find a soul mate. Users come to us when they’re willing to pay a lot more because they’re getting premium matchmaking. The average age of an eHarmony user has come down from the lower 40s and is ~4 years younger. 55% of new registrations are on mobile. …Sequoia Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures invested $110 million in eHarmony in 2004. Dr. Warren came back and bought it back for $153.2 million. Now eHarmony doesn’t borrow capital.
Dr. Warren: We also want to help people find the right job. Our site, Elevated Careers, will be available by the end of June. We’re working on matching people according to 4 criteria: First, there has to be cultural fit between a person and a company. …The second part is whether you have the skills for the particular job. …Then we have two personality matches: One involves how you will match with your boss, the other is how you will fit in relation to your colleagues. …We were failures in Europe after we invested $33m in eDarling which we sold back for virtually nothing. We didn’t have brand recognition in Europe. Now we’re going to run the whole thing from our current offices…and make sure our matching algorithm works in each country. We’ll translate our site, beginning with Spanish. We’ve also had a lot of interest from India, China, Korea. …I feel that being gay could have easily been true for me. We make pretty good income from ‘Compatible Partners,’ even though we don’t advertise it a lot.
by Georgia Wells
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Tinder Begun Offering Tinder Plus
WSJ – Mar 3 – Tinder Plus is a premium service that is the dating app’s first effort to generate revenue. Tinder also plans to introduce ads by the end of the month. The price will vary based on a user’s location and age. In U.S. the price will be $9.99 per month, although some users will be asked to pay as much as $19.99 monthly. In developing countries, the service will cost $2.99 per month. Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, an advisory firm for dating companies, said Tinder will likely make money from subscriptions than from ads. “Tinder should be able to make tens of millions from ads, but they’ll earn more from the subscriptions to allow users to nix the ads, and be able to determine their location and being able to undo swipes,” Brooks said.
‘The League’ Dating App Is For Successful People
WSJ – Feb 19 – The League, which launched in January and has raised $2.1M is for people who are “too popular as it is,” according to its site. 30% of the app’s users have advanced degrees, and 18% are executives, VPs or founders, according to The League’s founder and CEO Amanda Bradford. The app has a long wait list. 80K people currently are waiting for admission. The League isn’t the only player trying to get a piece of the more than $2B that the online dating industry is worth in the U.S., estimates Mark Brooks, CEO of Courtland Brooks, a firm that helps dating companies with business development and media relations. Bradford claims The League’s market lies somewhere between those of staid Match or eHarmony, and Tinder. “The goal is to keep The League well-balanced, diverse and classy,” Bradford says.